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Let's get physical
Last week, while writing up about the workings of my mind, I don't think I mentioned much about how i was doing physically.
A few years back, I had a lipoma removed from my lower back. It was fairly large, about 4 inches in diameter. Ever since then, my sciatic nerve will become painfully irritated about every six months or so. It started again two weeks ago; a little lower back pain when I got out of bed slowly and steadily increased until it took me 15 minutes to get out of bed at the end of the week. Luckily, I had a doctor's appointment already scheduled for Monday for a different reason, and as my doctor had admonished me for suffering through the back pain in the past, I mentioned it to him. Having suffered his own back problems, he put me on a week's worth of steroids, muscle relaxers, and hydrocodone. Together, they all worked wonderfully. The pain was still there, and I still stiffened up badly if I stayed in one place too long, but it was manageable. The wicked gas and diarrhea side effects were not so much fun, however. I have one dose of steroids left, and some muscle relaxers and pain pills left as well, but I doubt I'll need them in a day or two.
The reason I went to my doctor in the first place, however, was because of a lump that I noticed about three weeks ago, growing in the crease of my left thumb joint. He poked and prodded it and sent me to a specialist in Jackson, a three and a half hour drive away. Andy and I made the trip Thursday, had lunch at a really nice Mexican restaurant, marveled at how cramped and crowded and kitschy the town was, went through the Ripley's Believe or Not museum there (I ate a fried cricket to get $2 off my admission; Andy was brave enough. It was crunchy, and the chitin wouldn't dissolve and took a lot of water to wash down.)
The doctor x-rayed my thumb just to make sure nothing was in there, ruled out that it was a cyst by poking it with a needle (which HURT) and decided it's a benign tumor of some sort growing on the nerve or a tendon. It's not spreading, but it is growing. I already have something like that on my leg, and have for 20 years (a neruotoma, I believe it may be called) and was once told by a doctor that as long as it didn't hurt, to just leave it alone, and I have. But the one on my thumb hurts, so three weeks from now we'll be going back to Jackson so I can have it surgically removed.
I liked the doctor; he was funny and engaging and personable, and seems to know his stuff. It will be a general anesthesia, he said, instead of local, just to keep me from squirming around. I'm guessing then it will be a lot like when I had my carpal-release surgeries done- not put completely under, but I'll be so deep into la-la land that it won't matter.
My surgery is scheduled for 7:30 a.m., and I need to be there at 6:30 a.m., so Andy and I are driving up the night before and staying at a hotel owned by the hospital- our room is only going to cost us $50, which is easily 1/3 of the current going rate for a cheap hotel room in Jackson.
And we saw a buffalo in the wild on the way there, and one on the way back. They're just so darned CUDDLY looking.
Mr. Buffalo finally crosses the road.
Here Andy and I meet a giant jackalope:
It was a nice drive, and the countryside was beautiful.
A few years back, I had a lipoma removed from my lower back. It was fairly large, about 4 inches in diameter. Ever since then, my sciatic nerve will become painfully irritated about every six months or so. It started again two weeks ago; a little lower back pain when I got out of bed slowly and steadily increased until it took me 15 minutes to get out of bed at the end of the week. Luckily, I had a doctor's appointment already scheduled for Monday for a different reason, and as my doctor had admonished me for suffering through the back pain in the past, I mentioned it to him. Having suffered his own back problems, he put me on a week's worth of steroids, muscle relaxers, and hydrocodone. Together, they all worked wonderfully. The pain was still there, and I still stiffened up badly if I stayed in one place too long, but it was manageable. The wicked gas and diarrhea side effects were not so much fun, however. I have one dose of steroids left, and some muscle relaxers and pain pills left as well, but I doubt I'll need them in a day or two.
The reason I went to my doctor in the first place, however, was because of a lump that I noticed about three weeks ago, growing in the crease of my left thumb joint. He poked and prodded it and sent me to a specialist in Jackson, a three and a half hour drive away. Andy and I made the trip Thursday, had lunch at a really nice Mexican restaurant, marveled at how cramped and crowded and kitschy the town was, went through the Ripley's Believe or Not museum there (I ate a fried cricket to get $2 off my admission; Andy was brave enough. It was crunchy, and the chitin wouldn't dissolve and took a lot of water to wash down.)
The doctor x-rayed my thumb just to make sure nothing was in there, ruled out that it was a cyst by poking it with a needle (which HURT) and decided it's a benign tumor of some sort growing on the nerve or a tendon. It's not spreading, but it is growing. I already have something like that on my leg, and have for 20 years (a neruotoma, I believe it may be called) and was once told by a doctor that as long as it didn't hurt, to just leave it alone, and I have. But the one on my thumb hurts, so three weeks from now we'll be going back to Jackson so I can have it surgically removed.
I liked the doctor; he was funny and engaging and personable, and seems to know his stuff. It will be a general anesthesia, he said, instead of local, just to keep me from squirming around. I'm guessing then it will be a lot like when I had my carpal-release surgeries done- not put completely under, but I'll be so deep into la-la land that it won't matter.
My surgery is scheduled for 7:30 a.m., and I need to be there at 6:30 a.m., so Andy and I are driving up the night before and staying at a hotel owned by the hospital- our room is only going to cost us $50, which is easily 1/3 of the current going rate for a cheap hotel room in Jackson.
And we saw a buffalo in the wild on the way there, and one on the way back. They're just so darned CUDDLY looking.
Mr. Buffalo finally crosses the road.
Here Andy and I meet a giant jackalope:
It was a nice drive, and the countryside was beautiful.