brief snapshots in time. memories and thoughts. disorganized and random.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

now what?

We now interrupt our daily picture posts to bring you a life update.

So, there is a tear. And I'm not crazy.

I barely remember the procedure yesterday. But I do remember the doc showing me the picture he took while doing it. The one that shows the dye leaking out.

They sent me for a CT Scan after the procedure, for a better picture.

For three and a half years my doctors and physical therapists told me to do my exercises. To strengthen my muscles. Because the pain had to be muscular. I did them. Mostly every day, as I was told.

For three and a half years, it seemed they didn't believe me that the pain was still there. Didn't go away. Wasn't getting better.

And now I wonder if I made it all worse. If doing what they told me caused the tear to get worse.

The one thing I won't know until next Friday is what comes next.

For now, all I know is the dye exacerbated the problem. The pain I've been feeling for months, years, is worse than ever. Which only proves further there is a tear.

And did I mention? I'm not crazy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, Ow. I'm so sorry. Good for you for insisting they keep looking for the source of the pain. Hopefully, once they have a proper diagnosis, they can get you some proper treatment!

Anonymous said...

Crap! RG, the dye is definitely making things a bit worse, and it's known to have that effect. The tests as we now know, needed to be done years ago. I always wonder why so many docs just don't understand pain & how to adequately treat it and test for 'other physical causes'. It's almost never 'all Psychosomatic', there are almost always definite causes, they just all too frequently overlook them for their favorite diagnoses & more stereotypical explanations.

Their neglect, disbelief and studied ignorance is your suffering, secret shame & doubt. 'Am I crazy?' is a really common thought here, along with the almost as deadly 'they'd know better/best, right?'. Err... NO!

It's tragic, and it's a huge problem in medicine world wide. (It's actually about a 2000 year old issue, and they've almost scarcely gained much on it since).

It's really hard to say if exercise could have made it worse, but it's good that it only 'took 3 years' to 're-discover it'. Strangely enough for many back issues, that's a really common course of events. The issue is the possible treatment plans going forward and what sorts of destruction or degredation in form or function has occurred since the accident/incident. That can be considerable. But hey, this is something I suspect they've got better treatment plans for than even a few years back. With any luck & a good regimen of PT, you'll be doing fine quickly. I don't know how soon I'd be getting on ski's, but it's really hard to say that you'll be precluded from that. If you can walk, you can probably ski somehow.

But yeah, BF or doc, the next person who calls you crazy for feeling pain? Smack 'em. Then walk out. They're no good for you going forward or for comfort, advice or care. Count on that for sure.

Cheers & Good Luck, 'VJ'

Susan said...

Looks like you've been keeping up your post a day!! Yay!

I never thought you were crazy!