Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Doctor Visit #1

I hobbled into the clinic, filled out the forms as best I could. My doctor at the clinic did a few tests to see what the matter could be. After bending me in various ways, some of them painful, the doctor said that I had a "Herniated Disc". This meant that I had to stay down for awhile, and take some massive amounts of medicine, which were Skelaxin, a muscle relaxant, Methylprednisone (Medpack), steroids to reduce inflammation, and Ultram for the pain. I went home for 3 days after that. If I ever had doubts about modern medicine, they evaporated after I took my first dose of medicine. My pain went completely away while I was on the medicine. I didn't take it as easy as I should have - I helped to clean the house, mowed the lawn, and took the kids to the park. I had a potential allergic reaction after the first day - but I think it may have just been sunburnt skin making me itch. They didn't take any chances and changed my painkiller to Hydrocodone, better known as Vicodin.

By Monday, the Medpack was gone, my new prescription of Hydrocone was relieving all pain, Physical Therapy was fantastic, and I felt on top of the world. As I let me painkillers run out, I continued doing my exercises, and saw the doctor for what I thought would be the last time.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Ouch, my back

The Fourth of July is one of the few holidays that I have the freedom to enjoy – there’s no pressure, and you get to relieve lots of stress and tension in the form of aiming bottle rockets at your fellow man.

After a weeklong gauntlet of firing off bottlerockets, real rockets, fountains, tanks, and roosters, I finally spent the night inside. Around July 7th, I started noticing a pain in my lower back. This pain was not too severe. What felt weird, was that this pain was accompanied by phantom pain in my legs. I would feel this pinprick-electric shock sensation in a specific spot on one of my legs – for example, behind my left knee, or half way down my right calf – and the pain would just disappear.

I went on an MS-150 Prep bike ride – I rode my first half-century (52 miles), and did so at a reasonable speed. Impressive for me, but in the back of my mind, I could tell something just wasn’t quite right.

I ignored it the best I could. I spent the next 2 weeks using every OTC painkillers I could lay my hands on to stop the pain. On July 18th, I had a hard time walking. When walking, I had to walk with a shuffle. If I placed my left leg in front of my hips, my entire leg would shut down. I went to see the doctor that day.

Welcome

Hi, welcome to my blog.

I have created this in order to try and sort out some of the things that are going on in my life.

Some of the topics covered will be my family, Notre Dame Football, my health (especially my back), and bike riding.

I don't expect anybody to get much out of this - if you do, consider that a bonus.