Dissection of A Day
Thursday, April 19, 2007 at 02:42PM I know I'm not here. And I know y'all stop in and check on me and even, email me and ask how I am. And really, I'm okay. I've pared my life down. I've slashed and burned only the most important things.
The things important to me right now.
It's not that this place, my home in the ether, isn't important to me anymore. It is. But I've been back into RG lately and it breaks my heart to see I'm just not the same person I used to be. I'm not funny. I'm angry sometimes and a little bitter. I'm just not convincing myself in here these days and I guess I've sort of stopped trying. I'm turned inward. I've battened down the hatches and I'm riding out the storm.
Above all, I'm also boring as fuck. It's true.
I work Tues and Fridays at the unit. I work weekend evenings at the hospital. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday look a lot like today did...
7am - push Cabot-cat off my head. Do exercises before I get up. Stumble to shower. Drink coffee. Try and do something with the $60 haircut I hate. Dress.
8 am - get on the bus.
9 am - get to the hospital for test. (Today I volunteered for precision testing in the Nuclear Medicine Department for a BMD (or Bone Mineral Density), which tests the erm.. density of your bones. heh. Not much good at my age, really, except to tell me my bone density is better than a 30 year olds but it'll be good down the road as a baseline when I actually start to lose density and start breaking bones in my old age.
9:45 am - get coffee. go see Dad. go get Dad tea. Bother co-workers for updates.
10:30 am - get back on bus.
11:30 am - get off bus. Go to Dr. Olympics who does incredibly painful things to me and praises my progress and my pain tolerance levels.
11:50 am - stagger back to bus.
12:45 pm - stagger off bus and back into the hospital to check back in on Dad and refuel with coffee, trying to manage the screaming headache, numb fingers and lack of feeling in my leg caused by incredibly painful things done to me by Dr. Olympics.
1:30 pm - get back on bus to go home.
2:30 pm - arrive back home. Have nap.
6 pm - send email updates to family. Set up stuff for next day (coffee, clothes), watch a little TV, work out bus schedules.
10 pm - go to bed. Do more exercises. Cuddle Cabot. Sleep.
Rinse. Repeat.
If you've been adding as we go (or not) you can see that, today, I spent 4 hours on the bus and 2 hours actually doing things. I try to think of it as a work-day. I gotta tell you, it's an incredibly exhausting work day.
I'm either with Dr. Olympics or next door to his office in Athletic Rehab for an hour (also torture) three days a week. Some days, I do both.
You'll forgive me, I'm sure, if all my energy, patience and good will are pretty depleted.
I also saw the neurologist this week and there was good news there - I don't have a brain tumor (we knew that), I don't have MS (apparantly that was a concern at my age and somewhere in me I knew that because if you remember, I asked during the lumbar puncture when I was stoned out of my mind) and, it's not a spinal compression, stricture or any of the other big words that mean I have big issues with my spine.
That leaves, in everyone's professional opinion - musculoskeletal disorder. Dr. Olympics and aggressive athletic therapy seem to be 'my only hope'.
(What? The most painful work intensive thing EVER? I was sort of hoping for something they could just cut out / off and then send me on my way. But, you know, I'm lazy that way.)
For instance - (I'll pick the easiest two of the long list that are easiest to visualize) if I stand still and you look at me you can see that one shoulder is a full two inches lower than the other and my head is in the 'wrong place' (ie: it's farther over to the right side than it should be). In short, I'm a mess. A monster. A gimp.
But I am not an animaaaal.
On the bright side, they believe it's reversible. That they can retrain the small issues that became big big issues when subjected to the repetitive damage of basic training.
And, yesterday, for the first time in 10 MONTHS, I could pull my socks on without having to stop two or three times to breathe through the pain.
It's a long road I'm riding the bus down right now and for a while, well, silence is not a cause for concern - but for hope.
And then, by god, I'm going on bloddy vacation.
A long one.
Reader Comments (3)
The direction isn't wrong - it's being sidetracked for so long by the betrayal of my body and of myself that's ..er.. criminal.
You?
on a minor positive note, i might be able to help a bit. re your posture / head&shoulder positions/ etc, you fit exactly the third and most serious body categorisation of Peter Egoscue's posture-correcting/pain-reducing "exercises". i've tried them, and for almost no time and ZERO effort, they had astounding effects within 2 weeks. best £10 i ever spent. give it a go -- you've got nothing to lose and it might really help.
hmmm... can't link in this comment box. jump on Amazon and search on "Egoscue", look for:"The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion: Revolutionary Program That Lets You Rediscover the Body's Power to Rejuvenate It"