Tag: scoliosis


Full Back Scan

3
September

The MRI on Monday was a full back scan, which was interesting AND long. It took about an hour, and I had to have contrast, which made it even longer. Luckily, the girl who gave me the contrast didn’t tense up when it was time to do the shot and was able to find a vein kind of quickly. (She almost had a miss, but didn’t try before she was certain she could hit the vein.)

I haven’t heard back from it yet, which I guess I shouldn’t expect to for a few more days, but it makes me worry. A radiologist can read the thing quickly, and so can a neurologist. It seems like the two of them should be done with the scholarly debate or whatever they’re going through about it by now, but they aren’t.

In the mean time, I’m sneaking in little naps while sitting in the recliner and RARELY going to my room to sleep.

I think I may know what’s caused the pain and paralysis, though. I have scoliosis, which is a recent diagnosis (apparently my family doctor and orthopedist couldn’t tell in 20 years what a radiologist [and anyone who knows the difference between a curve and a straight line] who didn’t know me could tell in one sitting) and a long-time problem, and I happen to have two curve issues–one in the upper back and one in the lower back. (My lower back also has a curve inward [lordosis] that is significant in size…I jokingly say I could hold an orange within the curve.) I did a search on Google, which is not necessarily the BEST place for medical knowledge, but I don’t get to look at medical books. I found other people with pretty much the exact same symptoms. The only think I could find that matched is that we all had scoliosis. Maybe that’s what it is…maybe it isn’t.

1 comment » | Sickness and Health

So Simple, Yet So Complex

30
April

It’s weird. Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have thought that I would be writing this. Two weeks ago, Tad was still alive, and illegal immigration was just a theoretical issue to some of the people around here. (They claim it’s epidemic, but if you watch our local news, the only reports of illegal immigrant related “crimes” are related to the accident lately. Before that, it was mainly illegal on illegal stuff.)

When Tad died, I decided to start looking up what people were saying on blogs and stuff. I knew that there had to be people around here who knew him or something who were saying stuff. Apparently, there were a lot of people saying stuff, but very few actually had a clue about Tad or Leigh Anna. Very few even cared.

At first, they were somewhat sympathetic to the families. Then, when a story broke about how Leigh Anna’s mom had solicited the help of the man who ended up driving the other car that ran into Tad’s Supra, everyone decided to jump on Leigh Anna’s mom for causing the accident. I thought this was selfish and cruel of them to claim, but they did not listen.

Meanwhile, they were posting about other local political news. I, being the always political girl, decided to get involved in these issues and respond. I felt it was only fair if they were putting their opinions out there, I should have a right to put mine out there. One issue was about state funding for affordable housing. I think that sounds good. People deserve to have a decent place to live.

Well, suddenly, they were telling me that I didn’t know what it was like to own a house. Um, I do. Then, a trailer doesn’t count as a house. Well, that’s nice, I live in a house with a nice firm foundation. Now, I see this stunner:

Don’t sit in judgement of what we do for society since it is a damn sight more than what you do. If you’re getting SSA disability then we’re funding your disability payments.

I have to ask, because the situation you describe makes absolutely no sense – if you have no job then how in the world did you buy your own house at the ripe old age of 21? How do you keep paying for it? Do your parents live with you or do you live with them?

Followed by:

Actually, when you say she gives “nothing in return” you show why this system sucks. She is not the least bit appreciative of us funding her existance. She doesn’t even give us the courtesy of a heart felt “thank you.” If she had to rely on charitable giving instead of government confiscated and distributed money she probably wouldn’t have such a sour, spiteful disposition towards those who put food on her table.

Ooh, he sounds like he’s pissed off because he thinks I’m cheating him out of his money. Yeah, I bet when he learned at a very young age that he has a chronic debilitating illness, he was dead set on working the rest of his life. Oh wait, I was the one diagnosed and I was planning on working until the age of retirement. That was when I was just “crazy” and had arthritis. Then came Fibromyalgia, followed by over a half a dozen other physical ailments, two possible autoimmune disorders, and finding out that I have scoliosis and will possibly be in pain every day for the rest of my life because the school system couldn’t get a nurse to check me as a child…yeah, when you count up the number of conditions I have been diagnosed with that qualify for disability, it’s around 12 or 13. If there was a bad gene in my family for something, it got passed to me. Forgive me if I’m not in a hurry to get up and go to work every day, especially when I struggle to get out of bed some mornings because of all the crap that’s wrong with me.

People assume that if you’re on any kind of government assistance that you don’t need help. Well, people are wrong. Most people don’t want a handout from the government. It’s a very painful process. You feel so degraded by the end of it, and then your status is left up to people who have never even met you. It’s not something that I enjoyed going through, but it is something I had to do.

And as a member of this society, he is expected to pay Social Security taxes. He may hate that he gets to help me be all enabled or whatever he’ll want to call it, but it’s his responsibility. Besides, I don’t see him or his friends being big humanitarians, so I doubt they would actually donate anything if they weren’t forced to by the government.

Not really sure that these people have hearts.

(Oh, and you all should know that the English major in me really wanted to point out the idiocy that is someone who cannot spell judgmental and existence, yet drones on about issues like some great intellectual.)

2 comments » | Causes, Internet, Rants

I would joke that I’m not dead…

23
April

I would joke that I’m not dead, but it just doesn’t seem like a good thing to say right now. Over the past few weeks, people have been dying quite a bit in my life. First, there was a classmate at UAH who took his own life, leaving behind a little girl and a lot of people wondering why. Then, last Friday, a fellow YSA, Tad, died in a car crash along with his girlfriend, Leigh Anna. Tad was 19, Leigh Anna was 16, and the driver of the other car had been drinking. A couple of days ago, a man that was like a second father to my mother and was a major fixture in my whole family’s life died. I think his may have actually been one of those happier to hear about “died in his sleep” kind of things.

I have to pull off the impossible in a few hours. I have to get ink for my printer, print out a paper for my Honors class to turn in for my final, and then I have to make sure I get to Tad’s funeral on time. I’ve emailed a copy of the paper to my teacher, but I would really like her to have a hard copy in case she couldn’t open the file. I haven’t gone to bed yet because I’m watching a special documentary thing on Beslan, and I may watch a rerun of Hack at 5 with my mom. Then, I’ll grab about four hours of sleep and wake up at 10 feeling refreshed because that’s how I roll.

I’ve been very sick recently. Remember in November when I got that sinus infection, and then it repeated itself a few months later? Remember how I was cursing the makers of Biaxin because it didn’t work and it made me sick? Well, the sinus infection had gone into hibernation after that last time. When my back pain finally got to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore, I called my doctor and asked him if he could see me. He did, giving me a prescription for a muscle relaxer and steroids. Now, if you’ve ever watched House, you know that if you give someone who has a compromised immune system and has a resilient infection, then that infection will grow RAPIDLY. The quick pack of pills was over in 6 days, and by the second day, my ear was hurting a little. My sinuses began to flare up quickly after that, and by the end of that sick day pack, I was sick. Well, that was Friday night. You can’t go to the doctor (usually, unless another doctor has office hours on the weekend and is seeing my doctor’s patients that day) on Saturdays or Sundays. I waited it out to Monday. This was not good. As it was clearly bacterial, it grew and intensified. I was coughing, I could barely hear, and my head felt really heavy. The good news was, I felt no more back pain, even though the pain had not really left…I was just so sick that the pain did not register as important enough to be noticed.

On Monday afternoon, I went to the doctor, and I knew he would say Biaxin again. I wasn’t going to have it. I told him my symptoms and I told him that I did not want Biaxin. (I’m allergic to four major antibiotics, so it’s generally going to be between Levaquin and Biaxin. He hates to use Levaquin on me because he knows it works well and doesn’t want me to become allergic to it.) He almost said Biaxin until I told him about the ears. He looked in my right one, and said it was pretty good. He looked in my left for a split second and nearly jumped back. Apparently, the infection was SEVERE in there. He said Biaxin wouldn’t have cut it with that one.

I’m starting to do better now. It’s a little hard to breathe sometimes. My throat gets irritated quickly and I have to drink constantly to keep from coughing. My mom thinks the infection was either a staph or strep infection that got caught in my sinuses and, eventually, my ear, because the pain was so severe in my ear and my throat, and because of the difficulty that we’ve had in treating this thing.

I would have probably gotten better more quickly if my immune system could handle the job a little better. If my core body temperature wasn’t 97.0 normally, then I could probably fight off infections a little easier. When my temperature was checked at the doctor it was 98.3. The nurse was about to discount this as a low temp. It may seem low, since normal is 98.6. But if my temperature is normally 1.6 degrees cooler than a normal person, then 98.3 is like if I had a temperature of 99.9 if I had a regular body that worked properly.

Oh, I found out officially in the X Rays from my back that I have scoliosis. They have never officially told me that. I’ve had spinal films done before, but they typically thought it was out of alignment because I would have back spasms. Apparently, now they think I have a curvy spine. If I remember correctly from the films when I was 10, it curves to the left in the lumbar region. When the techs were doing the films that day, they were only supposed to be doing the thoracic region, but they seemed to get intrigued by something they noticed on it and decided to also do my lumbar area. It was probably the scoliosis.

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