An end to my glittering sporting career
You might remember about a year or a half ago, when I first hurt my back, to the point that I couldn't actually get dressed, and my boss huffed and sighed and hung up on me when I rang him from the hospital (because he thought I was lying) and then sent a car to fetch me and haul me back to the office. He grudgingly conceded that I did look like I was in pain when I turned up an hour later, in tears of pain having crawled up four flights of stairs...
I then had to put up with months of crap doctors ('it's muscular, now go out would you' 'but why does my leg hurt? And why do I have pins and needles in my foot?) before changing to my new lovely doctor who referred me for physio and having the lovely physio who referred me to an orthopaedic specialist, who whizzed me through an MRI scan (where I got played Blondie to cover up the noise) which confirmed that I've had a slipped disc all this time (probably caused by the original muscle damage when I wasn't allowed to rest it) and up to yesterday, where I wound up in hospital under general anasthaetic AND with an epidural, having a series of injections in my spine. Steroid injections apparently, so expect me to be kicking in doors and turning over cars any time soon.
Anyway, that's by the by, although obviously messages of sympathy will always be well-received. Really, I just wanted to mention my fabulous friends; Ms P who collected me from the hospital with a bunch of roses and took me home and fed me and made sure I didn't drown in the bath/fall down the stairs/sign any legal documents, the lovely G, who took over on Sunday with lunch and cakes and a remote benefactor who cheers me up with assorted format messages and has given me the run of their downloading account. I didn't tell my dad, because I don't want to worry him so it's really meant a lot to have my Tooting family come to the fore.
Comments
So was yesterday's trip scheduled or emergency? Not that it makes one bit of difference, it still sounds grim. And your Tooting family still sounds the best.
Wishing you a speedy recovery, Miss K xx
Ouch! Hope your new work are much more understanding about it.
Are they going to fix your slipped disc? Can they be fixed?
*waves*
Hope you're feeling perkier today.
Gamba: apparently the steroids will reduce the swelling so the disc can slip back in. I hope so, anyway. I'll keep eating cake, just to be on the safe side.
I shivered reading this.
My ex-wife had a herniated disk 3 years ago which came on suddenly as she was dressing one morning. I literally caught her as she just froze and fell off the chair she'd sat in. It took three of us to get her to the ambulance in a gurney with her screaming blue murder despite the anaesthetic gas.
At the hospital the reflex test did nothing and I was now scared she had massive spinal injury. They wanted to send her home without so much as an X-ray, never mind the MRI scan. Or the little fact that she could not actually move anything without being in excruciating pain. After two hours of being ignored a "doctor" came to tell us he'd booked an MRI scan for 4 weeks from now. I actually took him aside and explained if he didn't get me one right now he would require one for his own back within 30 minutes and that no cops or anyone else would actually stop me before I broke his back. And that I was more than ready to go to jail after but that he would remain a quadruplegic for life. I didn't raise my voice but I told him I would be standing right where I could see him and he had 30 minutes before I did it anyway because my patience had run out.
Sure enough he came back promptly to say he'd miraculously found a MRI scan to be free first thing in the morning and that she was going to stay over for the night. The odyssey which followed was along similar lines for more than a week until I could finally take her to Italy where people at least don't die of dirt-infections in hospitals. I was disgusted that I had to revert to neanderthal motivational methodologies on multiple occassions in order to get the most basic and abysmal level of care for her. Every experience I had with the NHS since has only confirmed they are really ex-grave-diggers employed in the wrong industry. You have my deepest sympathies!
Thanks, G! I could have done with someone having similar words with my boss/old surgery.
The pain can really be phenomenal; you don't realise how laughing, coughing, breathing heavily, taking big bites out of food, turning slightly to look at something or sneezing can rack your whole body in agony.
Even more crap, was the way I was treated so dismissively, even after I'd pointed out that this was a few months after losing my mum to cancer - she'd had a large tumour on her spine, which had also been passed off as a muscular problem...
My current (NHS) doctor is ace but worlds apart from the experience I had going private.