January 19 - “Back to back”

I trudged through my back exercises once again in the morning. So far every time I have done them (3 times a week) I have ended up feeling some degree of miserable by day’s end. Last time my bionic knee started crackling when I moved it. Whatever its issue was, it caused a lot of hurt for the non-bionic parts. Very weird.

 

Good news on the street front. The city crews were on the job by 8:30. Our street is officially repaved and open for business.

 

Chris led off the afternoon with an appointment to see her PCP. It was just a check-in deal. Nothing in particular. She ended up with a Covid booster and a full-blown teaching encounter with a medical student (guess who was doing the teaching!).

 

I followed up with a stint at my newest doc. He’s the pain guy. You know.  The one they call on to give those magic shots in your spine. My appointment was for four. I could have gotten in much earlier, but had to wait on Chris’ aforementioned med student.

 

We finally arrived around 3:30. They called us back fairly quickly. Come to find out, he had had one appointment at 8 a.m.  Mine was scheduled at 4 p.m.  That’s it. Nothing else. Strange scheduling. He pored over my x-rays and MRI’s, and asked a lot of questions. Some of the questions were even directed toward us. He likes to chat things out with himself, too. The bottom line as far as the next step is concerned? He will do two injections to see if that helps at all. If not, then there is some kind of strange new thing where they go in and cauterize the nerve. The theory is, a dead nerve won’t hurt. Yeah. Nope. I guess beyond that we’re back to the neurosurgeon for the three individualized surgeries or the mega-rod implant. Here we go. “Fortunately,” the procedure will take place on January 30th. Ah, January. Yet another large copay. I haven’t totaled them all up yet, but I’m pretty sure we will be passing $2,000 in medical stuff (copays and medication) on the 30th. And it’s just January. What a ride. Wheee!

 

1 Timothy 6:12 says, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

 

Father, thank you that there was an opening for the procedure so quickly. Amen.