part of me hates to post when I am in the throes of suffering.
Yet, this blog is not just an idle journal or a way to keep records for me. It is my way to chronicle what I am going through medically, and as I look ahead, I see quite a journey that will need recording. If I wait until I feel better, I will not remember what this feels like. Please read no further if you want to read only the pleasant accounts of my trail.
I've been working up to this day. A quick glance through past posts can easily tell that I have been slipping downhill through the mud and underbrush of this dangerous nerve compression.
It's not all a pretty sight.
Today is the worst I have had in a very long time.
When I get up in the morning, I have my usual lumbar area pain and hurting feet and legs. I get my coffee and sit down in the recliner to watch the news with my husband. And when the weight of my head starts crushing on what it is crushing on, what I go through is hard to bear and harder to describe.
The all-over "neuro" feeling, the buzzing at the ends of my fingers of both hands, my 24-hour jaw tremors amp up so I can't keep my mouth closed.
I've described this to women before as feeling like the worst day of a really bad period, that very deep and profound achiness, combined with all the other stuff. Scalp hurts, hurts to move my hair, occipital pain, eyes hurt.
The profound itchiness (I know, you've heard it all before! So have I, for so many years now!) which kept me from going to sleep last night. My eyeballs itch, the insides of my eyelids itch.
Organs inside my belly seem to itch.
Finally, I put on my CTO vest, something I don't need to wear (per Dr. B) when I'm "hanging out" around the house. This helps immediately to some extent, and ANY extent is better than NO extent! I can breathe a little better, swallow better.
I laid down with the CTO on, not an easy or comfortable thing to do, but as I keel slowly over toward the pillow, I easily sense how much better it feels with my neck stabilized by the CTO than without it on. Something is holding my head up. Thank you!
Nauseous, oh goodness, I have felt so sick to my stomach today. Common for folks with this sort of nerve compression. I sucked on a ginger drop, but that didn't work this time. Later in the day, I ate three saltines and sipped a tiny bit of O'Doul's and that really did help.
I fell asleep, rigid in the CTO, with my two mutts on the bed with me. It's been one of those days. Very very weak. Dr. B calls them "pajama days" but this is the worst one I've had in years.
So, I finally wrote to my neurosurgeon and told him that I'll be getting my DEXA scan next week, and Dr. Fu will be making his evaluation about me and a fusion surgery. I'm ready.
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