What a day

[LuckyCharms]

Today is a special day, so we ordered the best Italian take out in town for lunch.

I've been having serious back problems. Pain that makes me cry and gives me thoughts of suicide (no worries...but that's how this pain is). I made the mistake of sitting on a hard dining room chair to eat the food, but when I tried to get up after the meal, it was complete bedlam. Screaming and tears.

What I need is a steroid injected into a hand vein, and then have that followed up with a Prednisone one week taper.

I messaged my primary care in the portal. Got a call back from her nurse. "We don't do any injectable steroids in the office anymore. They might do them at a walk-in, but call first, just to make sure". I called the walk-in. Got the elevator music on hold. After 15 minutes, I gave up and hung up the phone.

Prior to today, I had not showered in two days, and I was getting a little funky and rank. We have two bathrooms, but the bathroom I normally shower in upstairs only has the suction cup grab bars. And the shower has glass doors, and I was afraid of falling through the doors, so that's why I hadn't showered in two days.

I never use the "fancy", recently remodeled bathroom downstairs. My wife does. I don't even know how to work the shower...there's multiple knobs and levers. But this bathroom has firm grab bars. I couldn't stand myself any longer, so I asked my spouse to show me how to work the shower. She started it up for me, and I climbed in. I was so unsteady that I asked my wife to sit on the toilet and watch me shower and try to catch me if I fell. So she did that, but I had a brutally hard time washing myself, and I was hanging onto those grab bars for dear life. I couldn't wash my feet, so my wife washed them for me.

Pain was worse after the shower. I broke down in tears of frustration.

I finally bit the bullet and took an oxycodone. I hate opiates, but it had to be done. So now I'm sitting here higher than a kite, with a warmed up bed buddy on my lower back.

The medical SYSTEM (not the professionals in this field) is so frustrating. Can't get my doctor to inject the steroids. Can't reach a walk-in on the phone to even enquire about that possibility.

I get this bad about once a year and Prednisone usually knocks it out in a week or so. I KNOW what I need, but it looks like the only way I am going to get it is to go to the ER. This sucks, because they probably will refuse to sedate me before a CT scan, and I absolutely cannot lay down flat. I would pass out from the pain.

Anyway, that's why I have not posted in the past few days.

It's very discouraging when you have to ponder how the fuck you are going to get medical treatment with something that you KNOW you need, without having to jump through hoops.

My wife is begging me to let her drive me to the ER, and I can't make her understand that I won't be able to get into the car. So that means a $1,500 ambulance ride when I can't take it anymore.

This shit is so fucking wretched that I can't put it into words to convey how bad this pain is.

My fellow DUers with spinal pain can probably relate to this though.

I wanted to go to No Kings on Saturday, but that's hopeless.