Tag: COVID19

therapy and covid

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, COVID19, CRPS, depression

Therapy and covid

I got a message this morning from my surgeon. He said my CT looks good and that I am healing. If I have pain to see him so next week I will see him (provided my Covid test is negative) as I still have pain in my arm. Since my last PT session, I have had less pain but my arm muscles are still sore for whatever reason.

My PT got back to me. She wants to see me in person and to call the front desk to see if this is possible. It isn’t possible because they are going by the 14 day rule rather than current CDC guidelines. I made an appointment for five more sessions. I took a shower today and my arm is hurting from moving my arm to wash up and wash my hair. I wanted to shave my underarms as a forest is there but I couldn’t lift my arm high enough to do it so said fuck it.

I had therapy today. We talked about my sister and her hissy fits. She wants me to not take blame when she goes off on something. I said I will try. She said that she is going back to virtual full time again because the cases are getting big again. Hospital wants to minimize traffic. I would have seen her today if I didn’t have to isolate because of my nephew having covid.

The only medication I have taken on “time” today has been my 4pm meds. I have taken my morning and T shot late. I actually almost forgot to take it until I looked at the calendar. My bladder urge has been horrible today. I either get it and can’t cath or I get it while I am cathing, which hasn’t been good as urine has gone down my leg today. Shower helped clear my nose and eyes for a bit. The dust in my room was really getting to me. Eyes were tearing while I was in therapy.

I don’t know why my left elbow is hurting me. It has to be because of the arm muscles being tight. I have been bad about using heat the past few days. I have the heat pack in the kitchen but I don’t like to spend time there because of Covid isolation. I have been drinking my coffee in my room most days.  I have been trying to keep up with fluids as I don’t know if this running nose I have today is cold or covid or allergies. I don’t feel sick. I am my usual brand of tired. I took a Benadryl to see if this is allergies and now I am sneezing so it might be a cold. I slept till 830 this morning because I shut my phone off. I had a few messages. I am glad I shut it off because the surgeon called before 8 am and I would have been pissed if he woke me up.

I have a can of corn chowder that I think I am going to have for supper. Just hope we have enough milk.

new year new positive

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, COVID19, CRPS, depression

New Year new positive

So my nephew is positive for Covid and so we need to isolate for the next week or so. I will have to test one of these days but I am not sure where to go as the place I went to in the past is closed. I will have to call my doctor’s office and find out where to go.

I have been going through my inbox trying to clean it out. I have 48 unread messages, down from 60. I also have been sending read mail either to the trash or to read mail for archive. I haven’t gone through all 100+ emails yet but I am sure by day’s end, it will be cleaned up.

I plan on reading more this week. I have less than 100 pages in the Medical Apartheid book I am reading. I can’t wait to be done with this book because it is so sad and angering. I plan on reading Rory O’Connor’s book When it is darkest next. It is about his suicide research and about suicide in general. I heard it was good and I have followed Rory’s research the past several years now. He is based in Scotland.

I still need to do my meds for the week. I got to call my pcp office tomorrow. I don’t know who will be prescribing meds for me from now on as my PCP has left the practice. I don’t know if I will need to be seen because my heart rate has been in the 100s the past few days. I have stopped the new meds and my blood pressure was high this morning. I will have to check it again tomorrow and see what it is.

The new box of catheters I opened has a lot of defective caths in it. So far there have been five in the box. I took a pic of the lot number I plan on sending to the company when I am done with it because there may be more in there that I don’t know about yet. I have an appointment with the uro NP this week. It will be good to see her to check in. Things have been going okay so far. I still have the bladder pain when I empty but I guess that is just something I have to live with. I am glad I got my uterus taken out so I don’t have to guess anymore where the pain is coming from.

My shoulder pain has been mild the past few days. Taking Excedrin has been so helpful. I cannot put on sweatshirts/hoodies. It hurts too much to pull the shirt down. I also hurt when pulling up my pants so I got to be careful about how high I go. I cannot scratch my left boob or side without excruciating pain. I am glad I have a back scratcher for my back itch. I am glad it is settling down some. Still two weeks before I see the surgeon.

I think because I have been taking extra pain meds my CRPS pain has been down. My ankle hasn’t been as flared up as it usually is. It will still get cold and I will have to wear socks to warm it up and keep it warm.

Sunday Blog 15082021

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, CRPS, depression

Sunday blog 15082021

I had a lot of things to do today as I listened to the ball game. I did my med boxes for the week, putting in the right pills for prep on Wed. I then made a little bag up to make sure I had enough caths and pads for after surgery. I think I am going to have some bottles of Gatorade on a shelf near my bed so I don’t have to bend down to pick them up. I ordered tacos for dinner. I am still waiting for them to be delivered.

I took a shower with the special soap I need to use. It is very liquid and does not lather well at all. I just took a quick shower. I can’t use the soap on my privates so I had to use regular soap. I feel better now that I am showered and my anxiety is a little less. I just need to empty my recycles tomorrow. I was going to do that today but I don’t feel up to it.

I listened to 8 innings of the Sox before getting too anxious about showering. My back flared up but it settled down once I sat down for a bit. They won 6-2, sweeping the O’s. They are off tomorrow and then play the snakes in the Bronx. They play two games but there was talk of a double header so I don’t know. My calendar doesn’t put in rescheduled games, which really sucks.

I think I am going to read tonight. I haven’t read anything in weeks. I have been really bad at scheduling time to read a book. I mostly just read Twitter, which lately has been depressing me because of all the virus cases and anti-vax idiots. It just hasn’t been fun lately. I try to get the pets and animals pictures so it can have some brightness to my day.

Tomorrow I go for my Covid test. When my med alarm went off this morning I thought today was Monday. I am so fucking nervous about everything. I think I will need an Ativan before my night meds. I just washed the new clothes I bought. I have to wear female underwear because I need to wear a pad for a week or two after surgery. I am not ok with this as I find it demoralizing but a pair of boxers doesn’t hold a pad so I don’t have a choice really. It won’t kill me to wear them for a week or so. I am listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter’s One Night Lonely album. It calms me down to hear her voice.

The tacos I ordered came cold and were not so great. Last time I order them. This is the second time they arrived this way and an hour late. I might have a yogurt. My leg is flared up from all the standing I have done today. I just took some meds. My lower back is aching so I took some Tylenol, too. I got to call my PT place to find out if I can see my PT if the Covid test isn’t back yet. Last time it took a little more than 24 hours for me to get results. Each PT visit they ask if we have a pending covid test or had a test within the last 24 hours. I don’t think it will be applicable to me because a doctor ordered it for my surgery not because I am having symptoms. I have been careful to wear my mask all this week and the week before when I go out. I just hope I can sleep tonight and not be up all night because I have to be up early to get ready for the test before leaving the house. I will have Starbucks on the way home because dammit I deserve it!

Love Story vs Don’t You

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, CES, chronic physical pain, COVID19, CRPS, depression, mood disorders, painsomnia

Love story vs don’t you

As you may know by now, I am a huge Taylor Swift fan. Her latest album, Fearless (Taylor’s version) has been playing since I have been able to download it to my phone. There are two songs I absolutely love. One is Love Story and the other is Don’t You. I am having a hard time deciding which to put on repeat because I want them both on my top 25 playlist. Right now the numbers are below 50 for Love Story and over 50 for Don’t You. (The numbers are how many times it has been played as recorded by my MP3 app.) I have been thinking of making a playlist with just those two songs so that I can listen to them back to back. I might just do that. Don’t You has been really talking to me, but not in a psychotic way. I just can really relate to this song so much. Taylor’s new music has been really good and there have been songs I can finally relate to. I feel like that her new music has been grown up as she is older now. My other dilemma with her music is that I follow her lyric bots for the album folklore and when a lyric plays and I don’t know the song, I want to listen to the album to know what the song is. It is driving me crazy not knowing.

It is almost 2am. I woke up an hour ago because of pain. And I had to pee as it has been six hours. I was able to void without cathing so I am happy about that. I am not happy I have a uti. My culture came back positive for bacteria. I haven’t heard from the NP yet if she is going to treat it or not. I have been feeling yucky the past two weeks since the cramping started. I have had busy back to back days and am really tired but cannot seem to sleep. I want to change my sheets but it will be a hassle as I have stuff on my bed again. I got Amazon packages surrounding my bed. I just have to take two downstairs to put on my porch. It is my new coffee that I love from Starbucks called Spring Day. It is limited so I bought a bunch while I had the money.

I was able to wake up early this morning to get my first vaccine shot. It took less than twenty minutes and I was early. I had to stay a little longer than the usual 15 minute observation period because I had an anaphylaxis reaction to ginger. Ginger is not in the vaccine but they wanted to be cautious because I had this reaction. The only reaction I am having right now is a sore arm and a headache which Tylenol helped very much. I had to ask my doctor if taking Tylenol on a daily basis is good. He said as long as I don’t go over the 2000 mg dose a day I am ok.