More news today — some good, some bad:
We’ll start with the good news. I got five rows pencilled today. I was pretty achey when I was done, and it was time for my first visit to the physical therapist, so off I went. Aches aside, I was actually feeling pretty good.
More Good News: Of all the medical attention I’ve recieved since getting injured, the winner of the “I felt decidedly better all the way around after you finished with me” award goes to the physical therapist. Not even the drugs made me feel as good as a heat treatment, massage, and some electrostimulation. My shoulder felt BETTER. This wasn’t endorphin-powered euphoria, either. This was “hey, the pain is gone for the first time in DAYS.”
The Physical Therapist was also impressed by my level of knowledge surrounding my injury. He said “you’ve sprained your AC ligament” and I said “Oh. Type 1 Shoulder separation, then.”
Him: “You’ve had shoulder troubles before?”
Me: “No. Google is my friend. I researched shoulder separations based on what the Family Doctor said, and determined that my symptoms were either a Type 1 or Type 2. Either way, no surgery.”
Him: “Good work. You may want to research “impingement” as well. It looks like you’ve got a little bit of that, and that’s part of what we’ll be treating.”
Needless to say, it’s a pleasure to work with a Doctor who trusts me and who won’t treat me like I’m incapable of understanding big words. And as I mentioned above, it was also a pleasure to be feeling so much better.
To celebrate, I drove to a movie. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was very, very nice. It was like a cross between “Batman” and “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.” Never having read the book, I can’t judge the film by its true-ness to Roald Dahl’s writings. I will say, however, that I missed the “Oompa-Loompa” song. The Elfman-arranged, Dahl-lyriced, Elfman-sung songs were excellent, but I wanted “Ooompa, Loompa, doompedy-doo.” Oh well.
After the movie I bought some groceries and headed home.
Now for the bad news.
At home I found out that my insurance provider won’t cover physical therapy unless I’ve had surgery. Great… the best medical attention I’ve had since this affair started is the only attention that isn’t covered. I started tensing up immediately, and the pain was back. Grrrr… It hurts just writing about it.
So I took some of my new painkiller, Ultram. Twenty minutes later I had this distinct feeling of “this isn’t doing anything,” followed by “but it’s been a long day, and I wouldn’t mind a nap.” In short, it made me drowsy, and tricked me into thinking it was a NATURAL drowsy.
Then the scary bit: as I lay in bed thinking “maybe the drug is making me drowsy” I noticed that my breathing had slowed down. WAAAY down. I wasn’t doing nearly enough of it. I vaguely remembered reading something about “difficulty breathing” under the list of “rare side-effects,” and decided to call out to Sandra for a little help. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up an hour later I still wasn’t breathing well, but I was pleased and just a tad surprised to still be breathing at all. I staggered downstairs, and announced to Sandra that Ultram was now on my short list (along with Demerol). I won’t be taking any more of it.
So… as I’m writing this my breathing is still shallow, but not nearly as labored as it was three hours ago. I’ll have to settle for some Ibuprofen for pain this evening, since hydrocodone is on the “contraindicated” list for Ultram, and the Ultram won’t be out of my system for another couple of hours at least. The BOTTLE of Ultram, however, will be out of the house in very short order.
Now for the worst news of all: Reading back over this post, I sound like a whiney hypochondriac. GRRRRR.
(crap. I tensed up the shoulder again.)
–Howard