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Thursday, September 07, 2006

More from before the crash

I think I'll reprieve a few more of my, before the blog crashed, photos. This hollyhock was a much loved plant because it was amongst a very few that survived a big summer hail storm. It was quite a few years ago that I had a veritable field of hollyhocks and huge sunflowers when a strong storm whipped through complete with enormous hail (or is it hale). My garden bounced back but the hollyhocks and sunflowers were for the most part demolished along the lines of the bigger they are the harder they fall. This hollyhock didn't break under the weight of the hail and I enjoyed it. I still enjoy plants from the seeds it put down which have sprung up in new places in my garden. I was looking over my paperwork for the clinics I'm going to this afternoon which will hopefully help me get back to whatever level of physical activity is possible. It isn't that easy to read my handwriting even when I printed as neatly as I can. Still I think it probably does have the information they need. One thing that will be better about the outpatient clinics for rehabilitation is that I've been written a script for several different ones. They probably won't be able to do the all the evaluations in one appointment but this will be an initial evaluation to come up with a plan. The three separate clinics are lymphedema, balance, and back. To an extent that covers it although I'm not sure those are the divisions I would use. What I find frustrating with the pain doctors, yes I am a broken record, is how they see I have so many different problems and they jump to a diffuse pain diagnosis and look for conditions like fibromyalgia which I don't fit. At least we're past that one but the lastest is for me to see a rheumatologist which I'll do eventually. What I try to get across is that I have problems directly relating to the groin LND which are by and large manageable. The increasing lymph back up is annoying and the periodic nerve pain on the left leg can be quite uncomfortable but those issues alone wouldn't send me to a doctor. The shooting pain straight down my spine and the burning pain in my right neck, shoulder and arm are not manageable without strong medications. The low back pain that goes into my legs which is probably from the disc bulge they found in the lumbar can be quite bad but that alone wouldn't have sent me to a doctor. The pelvic pains are the ones I most fear relate to a recurrence but they aren't anything like as bad as the spine or right neck issues. The lack of coordination and balance, particularly when I'm tired is upsetting. The overall sunburn feeling, tingling in my feet and sometimes hands, and weird sensations are managed with neurontin. Without neurontin I wouldn't be able to shower. So there you have it. How any doctor could be confronted with that and come up with diffuse pain or generalized pain is beyond me. The doctor who probably gets it the most is my neurologist and he'll keep looking for causes within the specialty of neurology. He's tenacious but he isn't going to look for causes outside his field. Fair enough. The problem is he's the only doctor who has spent enought time with me to get it. The P.T. I saw for a while got it. However, she wasn't in a position to do much about it beyond deep massage, estims and heat. When it got to where I couldn't tolerate the estims and heat we decided to hold off awhile. Besides, since she was out of network for me, the cost became prohibitive. Hopefully my insurance will cover the outpatient rehab now that I have a script for specific types of P.T. from my PCP.

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