Tag: cauda equina syndrome

Sleepy Sunday

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Sleepy Sunday

I slept most of the day today. I only woke up to use the facilities and then go back to sleep. I got up around 3. I then played my game for a little bit. I had some stuff to harvest but didn’t feel like doing it last night.

I think I leaked while I was sleeping. It has me a little bit worried but I will be taking a shower shortly. My clothes just felt wet. But they were dry to the touch. Very weird. I really have to psych myself up for showering because all I want to do is sleep.

I was having weird dreams, like I was still in the hospital and stuff. I woke up in sweats though my room is cool. It is a very cool day today. My mother has the windows and kitchen door closed. She normally has them open. She made chicken soup for dinner.

My leg is hurting me and I really don’t know if I want to shower. I know I need to. It has been more than a few days since I last showered. But if my leg is hurting, showering is going to be difficult.

I must have been in a bitchy mood last night. I read and re-read the text I sent my therapist and it makes no sense. Good luck to her if she can figure it out. I was really tired yesterday as I was up at 4 in the morning. I guess that is why I am so sleepy today. The weird thing is, that I haven’t taken anything that would make me so sleepy. I haven’t take not one pain pill all day. All I did take was my blood pressure medicine.

Still can’t find the pill that escaped. If I don’t find it soon I might have to take a week off the pill so that I am back on schedule. I just don’t know where it would have gone. It’s a small white pill against gray carpeting so it should be easy to spot. It is pissing me off that I can’t find it. I keep hoping it shows up but it hasn’t so far. Rascal.

I think I am going to go back to sleep. I can barely keep my eyes open typing this.

Saturday Blog 10

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders

Saturday Blog 10

I have been up since 4 this morning. I woke up in pain and have been unable to go back to sleep. All I have been doing is playing my Facebook game. I made breakfast around 6.

What is freaking me out is that last night when I was preparing my meds, my most important pill escaped. It rolled off the bed and I have been unable to find it. In trying to find it just now, I have aggravated my sciatica. Monday when I have the “mock” interview, I plan on that being my chief complaint. I think that will be a nice way to introduce CES to the interviewer. I hope I don’t have to explain what CES is. I really don’t because every time I have to explain it to a medical professional, my heart sinks in the confidence I have in the individual. Although CES is considered a rare condition, I know of about or more than 500 cases in countries around the world. Those are the ones that are true cases. But what doctors don’t get, is the aftercare of dealing with CES. Often the immediate condition is dealt with (often a ruptured disc or broken vertebraes), the person left with this condition requires care that is outside of surgery’s realm. Pain is a common occurrence. I know that for me, I still had back pain after surgery. It wasn’t until I was on regular opioid medication that I was free from this pain. Now I am taking it because it caused another condition, complex regional pain syndrome, in my nerve damaged left foot and ankle. I never recovered 100%. Plus I got hit with this condition for a second time, 5 years later. I think that is what “did me in”, so to speak. If I didn’t have this for a second time, I think I would have recovered fully. But alas, that didn’t happen.

Today I am still dealing with the effects of Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES). I am in pain nearly every day in my ankle and foot, sometimes my leg if the pain is really bad. It usually hurts because I don’t wear my AFO (ankle foot orthotic). I did a lot of activity on Thursday and I am still dealing with the after effects. I find that if I do a lot, I pay for it later, sometimes up to three days. It sucks.

I am in a lot of pain right now because the temperature dropped. It is cold and my foot hates it. I just took some pills to ease it. I am going to try and take a nap as being up since 4 am is not good. My foot feels like there are ice cubes on it, it feels so cold, even with a sock on it. But I am now back in my bed rather than my sister’s kitchen watching Spongebob. I was watching my niece for a little bit today.

Meeting with my Pdoc

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Meeting with my Pdoc

I found out that my doc wanted to really know what had happened last week. I had emailed her to let her know that I had a dissociative episode and the next thing I know she wants to meet with me. I initially had an appointment with her on Friday but she moved it up to today. I was surprised that my email generated such concern, but then it is not usual for me to have these dissociative episodes. I told her everything that I had told my therapist this past week about it. She kept on calling the new person Hyde, and I had to correct her that it wasn’t Hyde, but another person. I gave a description of what went on, before I fell asleep that night. I still remember in detail about what went on because I was in somewhat control. It was just scary to me because the person inside me was so angry.

She, like my therapist, had no explanation for me. She knows that I am not DID but I do dissociate. The thing was, as I told her, the alter was familiar. I know I have felt him before but this was before I knew about dissociation and the like. I also told her that I was under heavy narcotics and she thinks that instead of me hallucinating, I dissociated. But if that were the case, this would happen more often as I do take these meds frequently. I have to, to keep my pain levels from driving me to suicide. She knows I need my pain medication. I still think that low blood sugar contributed more than just taking my meds.

Before we concluded, she asked me if I wanted to do the mock interview for her 1st year medical students. I said sure and she specifically wants me to talk about Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES). That is not a problem. I have talked about it before and I can certainly talk about it again. My brace should be sufficient cause to raise an eyebrow or two. The only thing that sucks is that I have to be interviewed by the same older woman as last year. She intimidated me and kept my answers short. I couldn’t elaborate because I felt like she lost interest in what I was saying a few sentences into the answers to her question. It was like I should only be saying yes or no to her questions, which is not possible when you are trying to teach medical students about something as complex as CES.

As we were talking about Hyde, she asked me if I read the book. I told her I didn’t and so she recommend that I read it. I got a free download of it on Kindle. I will read it after I make some progress with my Civil War book. I have so many books that I am in the middle of that I hate to start a new one. She considered me calling the new “he” Jekyll. I wouldn’t mind that.

She asked me what I wanted to be called. I said GC. She asked why I didn’t go for Alex, I said it didn’t fit for me and I tried Mike for a year. GC just seems like a good name to choose and she agreed.

Thirteen Years Later

by Midnight Demon, posted in Chronic pain, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Thirteen years later

I started writing a little bit about the attacks on Sept 11th, 2001, but then I realized I am not a political individual and my opinions may not be heard without some come back. I do know this. After thirteen years, our troops are still not home and maybe fighting another battle in the years to come. Now the enemy seems to be ISIS, whatever that stands for. I see the reports on Yahoo News on my twitter feed. Each day I realize that we are getting closer to another world war. I hope I am wrong for my nieces and nephew’s sake.

I had my appointment with my father today. Appointment was scheduled for 0930. An hour later, we see the doc. Never fails. It went well overall. But I am tired because I didn’t get my coffee this morning. Because my bus was late, I had to get coffee at the convenience store. I didn’t have time to walk to Starbucks.

I was able to remember the power cord to charge my laptop in case it became low on battery. But you think I remembered to bring my phone charger? No. It didn’t occur to me until I got to Starbucks and was checking my FB feed. I still have time to go home and get it but then, by the time I get home, it will be time for me to go back out again. I hate having an appointment so far apart from each other. But I rather be in Starbucks than at the hospital. I went to the one in my home town rather than the one in Boston. No need to stay in town when I can be elsewhere and won’t bump into people I know. Someone at the docs office recognized me from high school. I never seen her before nor did I recognize her. I didn’t even get her name, but she knew me. Oh well.

I desperately want a nap. I might ride the trains to kill some time. I slept really good last night, until my alarm woke me up at 0730. I forgot to pack my lunch that I made before going to bed last night. Now I will have to buy lunch. But I am not hungry as I just had breakfast, LOL.

Another day that goes by that I don’t make an effort to get my car out of the driveway. I need to call a junk place and get it out. They will actually pay me for pick up so I don’t know why I am procrastinating. Google will give me at least 10 places I can call. I just don’t know what to say. I have problems talking with people on the phone. I rather text or email them. But for this, I just cannot do that. I did call one place before I went into the hospital, but they didn’t call me back. They were going to pay me at least $200 for the car. Oh well. I will get another place. At this point, I really just want the car gone. It is literally falling apart and won’t survive another winter sitting there.

The temp for today was supposed to be in the 80s and humid. It is neither. There was also a call for rain but now it’s been pushed to the evening. I am glad because I hate carrying my laptop if there is a chance of rain. But when I left the house, it didn’t look like rain and the weather was in the upper 60s. I hope it doesn’t get to be 80. My back will hurt big time. That is one thing I hate about the temperature changes. Drastic shifts always cause my spine to hurt. I have arthritis in my lower back and I can feel the changes in temp when it is 20 degrees or more. Last winter was horrible. I was hurting almost every other day because the temp kept on going from 50s to 30s or lower. Snow and rain don’t really affect me as much. I long for the day when it was just my knees that hurt from the weather. I have moved passed that since my back surgeries, oddly enough, thirteen years ago. Least for the first two. The third and 4th would come five years later.

I have decided to conserve battery power by listening to Pandora as I sit in Starbucks writing this. It’s not the same music that is on my MP3 player but it’s music. I got 3 hours before I have to go to my appointment. Time is crawling. My leg is hurting me with the brace on. I just loosened it so that it’s not irritating me so much. I hate being in the AFO all day but it’s better safe than sorry as I am trying to avoid pain. I am not walking or anything. I am just sitting while I am typing this. It annoys me that I can do nothing, yet still be in pain. Drives me bonkers.

Just got a “trend” alert about Gmail. If you use it, please change you password immediately. Hackers were able to publish 5 million passwords online. I just changed mine, though I hardly use it since the privacy factor is gone. I still have it just in case someone uses it. Now it’s mostly junk mail I get. I also had to change my therapist’s password. I had set up an email for her so she could read my blog but it never worked out. Turns out texting her the link to my blog works better for her. She is not tech savvy.