After a month and a half of pain, I decided this back issue was not going away with wishes and stretches. As someone who has always enjoyed rearranging furniture and jumps right in whenever equipment or scenery needed moving, a sore back is not a new feeling. I knew this was getting to be quite different.
I called the doctor who had done my pain blocks before and since it had been 7 years, I was considered a new patient. If I haven’t had an issue, I don’t really need to regularly see this particular doctor who only manages pain. Bottom line, as a new patient, he couldn’t see me for months.
I then called the doctor who had just done some pain blocks for Tim but he couldn’t see me for 3 months! He also needed a referral, so I sent a text to my internist/ friend. His office also told me that since I had not seen him in a couple of years, I was a new patient. Really? Again? I will admit, I probably should have been to see him more regularly, but I haven’t ever been one to go to the doctor if I wasn’t sick. I do go to my gynecologist every year and kind of count that as my “check up”. (And a yearly mammogram is a MUST!!)
My internist friend sent the referral in anyway and I made the appointment, but knew I would not make it through three months like this.
About then, another friend, who is a rheumatologist, texted me about something else. During our texting I told her what was going on and told her I was kind of at my wit’s end. When I asked her what to do, she said to come see her in the office the next day at 4.
I was there with bells on, although I could not sit comfortably. Part of the weirdness of all of this has been the inconsistency. One day it hurt to sit, the next it hurt to stand, for a while I hurt all day, but could get comfortable and sleep all night, then I was better during the day but could not find a way to get comfortable to sleep.
My friend did some X-rays and we talked about how to proceed. She set me up to get an MRI the very next day.
My friend is in a practice of Ortho doctors in the same hospital where my father was treated so wonderfully just a few months before. In going to get an MRI, I realized the mindset of kindness and efficiency ran through the entire hospital. I was signed in, paid the deductible and was called back in a few minutes. I had my MRI with a lady who coddled and cared for me. When we were done, I told her the doctor wanted to see me after the MRI and was moving the car to get to her office the best plan?
This woman smiled and said I could do that, but I could also walk through the hospital. Instead of just telling me how to get there, she proceeded to walk with me as we chatted about the things you chat about with a stranger.
Within a week I had an appointment with the the pain doctor I had seen seven years before, the one who couldn’t see me for months when I called the week before. A pain block was scheduled for the end of that week.
It is here that I have to say I felt guilty that I had “jumped the line” and used my friendship to do so. I mostly wondered what people without the privilege of having so many friends who are doctors do. I guess they languish in pain until they can be seen. I don’t know about you, but I find that upsetting.
The morning of the pain block, my husband drove me to the outpatient care facility and we entered the waiting room together. He chatted with me until they called me to register and pay that never ending co-pay. We chatted more until we moved to the waiting room upstairs. Eventually I went back to be weighed and measured, vitals taken and then to a bed to have an IV started. As soon as I was poked, prodded and stuck, Tim was able to rejoin me, and although we didn’t talk as much, he was there with me. It was comforting to have him there.
Tim went out to wait when they rolled me back and it seemed only minutes (more like an hour) before I was having my juice and graham crackers, then wheeled out to his truck. By lunch time I was home eating a sandwich and recuperating.
The next day we were set to move back into our newly remodeled den. Small furniture pieces had been piled in our guest room and the bigger pieces were in Tim’s trailer. Two great guys from the church youth group came to help and I did a lot of pointing. What I thought would take all day actually took an hour and a half with these fun, strong, young guys! The guys left, Tim went out to his studio to do some work and I began to slowly put knick-knacks out on tables. I probably did too much and I will take full blame for that. I was more careful than I usually am, but probably not careful enough. I’m a doer- it’s a problem!
I felt great until I tried to take a bubble bath that evening. As I got in the tub, I felt the pain throughout my whole body. I barely could get right back out and from there, the pain only got worse. I had rehearsals a few days later and then PROOF opened- I was director AND stage manager (a pandemic made me even more careful about how many unrelated people needed to hang out backstage.)
After the show ended, I was no better. I had done the PT and been told not to come back- to get another block. I did the weekend of the musical review because I had made a commitment and I really like the people involved. By the end I could barely walk.
I contacted my rheumatologist friend and asked her if I should go ahead and get another block. She said yes. I vowed to be exceptionally careful this time. PROOF was done, the musical review was over and when I went to see the pain doctor, he could tell I was worse. He scheduled me for the next day.
It had been only 6 weeks, but the world had changed. Although we had gone to masks optional at church a little while before, we were back to a mask mandate due to rising cases of the virus. For PROOF the theatre was masks optional, the musical review was masks required. When Tim and I got to the outpatient care facility, same place with same people for the same procedure, everything was different. He could not come in the front door with me. I had to do everything alone. The rules were stricter.
Tim sat in the car as I went through the whole procedure alone- no one to talk to or hold my hand. My procedure was minor compared to most, but I thought of how I would feel if I had to do something major all alone. I knew there were people all over the world going through exactly that. It made me sad.
Due to the doctor “fitting me in” I was way down the list. Tim was stuck in the car, in the heat, for 5 hours. The quick event from 6 weeks before was a thing of the past. Between the more strict protocols and the later start time, I was there long enough to really talk to some of the nurses and get to know how they were feeling about things.
One nurse sat with me as I had my juice and graham crackers after the procedure. She told me that when the pandemic began, she quit her job as a nurse. Her husband had cancer and her daughter had had a stroke at 20 years old. She was fearful of bringing home a virus that could kill her loved ones in their weakened conditions.
When the vaccines came out, she had them all first in line. She breathed a sigh of relief, in her mind it was over. She found a new job quickly and was happily working in the outpatient care facility. Then people refused the vaccine and the numbers began to climb again. She told me, with tears in her eyes, that she was contemplating quitting her beloved job again. She feared not only the virus, but also saying how angry she felt that this was getting worse again. She knew it was a touchy subject and many of her patients didn’t see her side of things. She thanked me for being vaccinated (I offered that information, she couldn’t ask) and for listening to her. I wished her the best and we took a moment to try to reassure each other that things would get better.
I was rolled out to Tim’s truck and although I felt terrible that not only did he sit for 5 hours in his truck waiting on me, but he had had a strange guy that kept coming over to his truck to report on the sister he was waiting on in his vehicle. She was also having a block. Tim was trying to watch a movie on his iPad, but kept having this guy come over to talk and talk and talk.
We laughed, got a sandwich on the way home and I was settled into bed to eat and nap for what was left of the day. The next day I rested and while trying to be really careful the rest of the week, I began stage managing another show, with an assistant and the understanding that I might not be able to finish the job.
That was what I said out loud. Inside I felt sure that no matter what, I WOULD finish the job!
I gave it the 10-14 days I had been told it could take for the block to work. I was slowly getting worse. I texted my friend and she said to go back to the pain doctor.
I did.
It was a Thursday and he set me up for block number 3 on Monday. I told the director of the play that I would take Monday and Tuesday to rest and by the next rehearsal on Thursday, I would be back and probably good to go.
By Monday, I could barely walk. The rules were still strict, but this time Tim had to go in with me, I could not make it on my own. When the welcome lady at the door saw me, she grabbed a nearby wheelchair and seated me. She rolled me to the cubby to pay my deductible and then she rolled me straight upstairs.
Let me say that I was mortified to be rolled around and to wear the yellow “FALL RISK” bracelet they put on me at the door. The fact that I got moved around more quickly and skipped some steps in the process were a sad perk to the situation. After the procedure, the nurse asked me if we had sufficient ramps and walkers for me at home. I cried out that I had run a 5K only a few months before, that I did yoga every day and lifted weights several times a week. I told her I was only in a wheelchair because of whatever was going on with my back, but I was a healthy, vibrant woman, not an invalid!
I felt old and indignant!!
It makes you stop and think what life would be like, what it is like for people who live with that circumstance every day. It makes you stop and realize you aren’t getting any younger. It made me tear up to think I might not get better. I pushed the thought away, ate my graham crackers and juice and got wheeled out to the truck.
I rested the rest of the day, I vowed to be super careful so that I got better this time. The next morning, I could not get out of bed. The day after that, I was no better. I realized I had to quit the show, something I have not done before in 59 years of theatre (well once, but that is a long story I will probably never share!) I contacted the director by email, explaining that I was not able to come back and I could not talk about it on the phone yet without crying, so I was emailing my resignation. I cried most of that afternoon.
When I was no better at the end of the week, I asked my rheumatologist friend if I should give it the full 10-14 days and she sadly told me no- go see the surgeon.
I knew from 7 years ago that this surgeon was not knife happy. My doctor friend agreed- he is her colleague in her same practice and she was very positive about him and how he would conduct himself. I called and got an appointment to see him the next week.
I don’t think I will ever eat graham crackers without thinking about hospitals and procedures. I like graham crackers just fine, but never eat them except after I wake up in recovery and get them from a nurse.
I also don’t think I could ever take for granted how lucky I am to have a friend who could get things going so much quicker than I could alone. I was making the appointment to see the surgeon after three pain blocks on the very day that I would have had my first appointment to see one of the pain doctors without her help. I shudder to think what kind of shape I would have been in just taking pain pills and waiting for three months!
I don’t know what the answer is to the health care dilemmas I saw through all of this- the wait times, the protocols, the nurse who cried over the pandemic. I just know that it was a lot to see and ponder as I navigated the system and in honesty cheated the system a bit by having such amazing friends.
I was about to see even more as I scheduled surgery and continued on this path.
