So, physical therapy for my neck is going alright, I suppose. The heat, stim, ultrasound, and massage are wonderful and give me so much relief from the discomfort. And I’ve noticed that I’m getting a tiny bit of energy back. One of the therapists that I had on Tuesday was a year into recovery from herniated discs in her back, so it was really nice to trade stories with her and know that nothing that I’m experiencing is at all out of the ordinary.
I am a little concerned about my nerves, since the numbness in my left hand hasn’t gone away at all and at times seems to be getting worse. I still have tingling from time to time and it’s just kind of like having pins and needles constantly.
I go back to the neurosurgeon on the 9th to check on my progress and I guess I’m worried that I’m not making progress. But the therapist who had herniated discs did tell me that it does take a while to really get better.
I’m supplementing my therapeutic exercises with regular exercise, squeezing in a trip to the gym when I can. (I got to physical therapy 3 times a week during work hours, so I can only go to the gym on days that I don’t have PT.) Yesterday I took yoga and for the most part it felt fine. The only real modification I had to make was not doing the back bend, since the possibility of struggling to get or stay up with my weaker arm and then landing on my head was too high. Of course, during some twisty triangle pose, my left hamstring went, “Ahem.” I think because my left side is all tight and scrunched up from trying to protect my neck. I’d really like my body to quit falling apart.
Another side effect of this whole thing has been the emotional aspect. I’m not in severe pain all the time, so I get impatient with myself and want to just do everything that I’m used to doing. Then when I do that, my body is immediately like, “What the hell were you thinking?” And that bums me out because I feel like I’m old and decrepit already. And then I eat crap because I have poor coping mechanisms sometimes. And then I gain weight and feel like even a bigger piece of shit.
Frank posted this picture from Belvedere’s and I know that the only thing that I should see in it is how much fun everyone is having.
That's me in the green dress in the lower left
But the main thing that I see is how heavy I am and I get furious with myself.
I know it’s not permanent. I’m just really annoyed with my body for not acting the way I think it should, you know?
I’m wearing my glasses today, which sucks for several reasons. Primarily, those reasons are that they’re from a prescription strength or two ago and I am going to the gym later to ride the stationary bike again. They will become foggy and uncomfortable.
But it also really sucks because I’m wearing my glasses because I don’t know where my contact lenses are. Last night, before bed, I took my lenses out, put them into the case, fiddled with one that got folded and stuck, closed the case, put my glasses on and went to bed. Just like every night.
This morning, I realized that my contact case was not on the sink. Figuring the kitten probably swiped it off of the counter in the middle of the night, I started looking around on the floor for it. I found the case underneath the bathtub. But when I opened it up, there were no lenses inside.
This is the second time that this has happened in the past two months. It’s extremely annoying, but also kind of disturbing, because what the hell is happening to my contacts? The case is screwed tightly, so it’s not like the kitten manages to knock it around enough to spill the contents. My only guess is that I’m sleepwalking and going through some kind of self-sabotaging process of dumping my contacts down the sink, filling the case up with fresh solution, possibly poking at my eyes to take out lenses that aren’t there, closing the case, and going back to bed.
Remnants of the admissions stamps from Belvedere's
I always feel weird when I write about the music that I listen to. I know that a lot of people think dance music is all Jersey Shore nonsense, which is just…ignorant. I mean, I don’t really know or care about rock music, but I know that whoever is playing on the radio or on MTV or burning up iTunes isn’t the whole story of the genre, you know?
I guess because I don’t really know who all reads this crap, but I’m certain that a decent portion of the people who do read this site are not really that concerned about dance music. I’m certain about that because it’s a pretty tight-knit group and, yeah, it’s a subculture that’s perfectly happy flying underneath the radar. Most of the time, you probably wouldn’t be able to pick a dance music nerd out of a crowd. But you would only need to overhear a fevered conversation about records or the coordination of a much anticipated vacation to Detroit to realize that they’re an odd little bunch. They have jobs and families and leaky faucets. But on the weekend they have this amazing ability to have fun with absolute abandon.
It’s definitely one of the main things that I have in common with the people that make up my “chosen family.” And our gatherings are always fun, but every once in awhile there’s a night that’s just…legendary.
The husband has this recording of a DJ set by the group The Three Chairs at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival from 2003. I didn’t go that year and listening to that set always makes me wistful. The music, of course, is amazing, but you can hear the crowd going completely berserk. There have been a number of sets that have been epic enough to be placed into the same sentence as that Three Chairs set, and I think ever since then it was the husband’s goal to have one of his own. Saturday night, along with our dear friends Jwan, Frank, and Chris, he accomplished that.
Over 300 people packed themselves into a smoky Belvedere’s and danced and danced and danced. I had positioned myself at the front and every time I looked behind me, the crowd had grown thicker. Eventually, the room was completely full and every single person there was dancing their fool heads off, smiling and laughing and having the best time. The husband, Jwan, Frank, and Chris were on fire, completely ruthless with their track selections, intent on working the room into a frenzy that looked deserving of some holy water.
The lights came on at 2 a.m. but neither the music nor the dancing stopped. The Belvedere’s staff let us go for a little bit longer, but eventually made it clear that they were ready to go home. Our friend Preslav authorized an after party at the Machine Age studios and a decent portion of the 300 people caravanned over there with us.
We packed into the tiny hallway of the studio where the turntables were and the husband, Jwan, Frank, and Chris picked up right where they left off. Drinks kept flowing thanks to a stashed case of IC Light Mango (I don’t know) and a grocery bag full of the odds and ends of someone’s liquor cabinet that they were nice enough to grab on their way over. We kept dancing and laughing and hugging and singing.
As the clock neared 5 in the morning, the party was still going strong, but I began to notice that my neck had had just about enough for one evening. (Honestly, I’m really proud of it for making it as long as it did. That’ll do, neck. That’ll do.) I told the husband that I was fine to stay, but that I was hurting. He wanted to play just one more record. We kept bobbing along as he waited his turn, and I had to pathetically lean on the sister-in-law to give myself some relief.
Then, the husband stepped up and put on this:
Oh, yes he did.
The place erupted as everyone cheered and sang along and I thought, “My god. This is incredible.”
As the husband wrote in his post about the event the other day, Pittsburgh has had a fairly rich history of dance music for years. And I know that that might sound weird, but somehow it just works here. Things were pretty anemic there for awhile, but in the past few years, something has clicked. That there were over 300 people out and dancing for local DJs, not some relatively well-known performer from out of town, is wild. And I can tell you that there is zero pretension involved. For whatever reason, everyone is ready to just go out and have a good time. It’s amazing to witness.
Something is happening here in this city. While we all passed around The List from WaPo declaring Pittsburgh in with a snicker and our tongues in our cheeks, they might really be onto something. It’s fun here and people seem to be realizing that the kind of fun that we like to have, which has been a punchline for so long, is actually a really good time. It’s an opportunity to get lost and forget about everything else for a few hours and realize that, yes…you are beautiful.
Among the gifts underneath our Xmess tree this year were a few board games. The husband, the baby, and I enjoy playing games together, but had run into a problem recently where we (okay, I) hated all of our games. My kid would sweetly request my time over a board and a couple plastic peg things and then I would suck the joy out of life by lying on the couch, shouting out rejections as he ran down the list of available games.
“Mouse Trap?”
“Naw, man, that takes forever.”
“Clue?”
“That also takes forever.”
“Monopoly?”
“Aw, dude, Monopoly sucks.* What’s wrong with Candyland? Candyland owns.”
“I don’t want to play Candyland. The Game of Life?”
“Dude, you said you were never playing Life again after last time when you had five kids.”
“True.”
Last night, we decided to try one of his new games, Stratego, which they play at the baby’s after-school program. Apparently, this game has been around forever, but the husband and I had never heard of it. The husband was laid up on the couch with a headache so the baby and I opened up Stratego. This was at, like, 8:30. I did not realize, however, that prior to actually playing the game, we would have to finish assembling the goddamned thing, which meant putting decals on 60 game pieces. Suddenly, the baby’s innocent question of, “Are you any good with decals?” which he asked while I was busy dropping stuff with my gimpy hand in the kitchen, made sense. The husband mumbled that the baby should NOT apply any decals because GOD FORBID any of them be crooked. So this task was left to me, the chick with terrible eyesight and only one truly functioning hand. Some of the decals were still crooked, shockingly enough, but the sun still came up today so I guess it’s cool.
The baby started reading the directions aloud and they were more than three sentences long so my mind started to wander. I skimmed over them when he was done and went about setting up my pieces, trusting the directions that said that I could arrange them any way I wanted. We started playing and quickly realized that neither of us had any idea what we were doing.
The husband emerged from the couch and came to join us. “Uh, I think I set up my pieces poorly,” I mumbled.
“Yeah, you did. Why did you put all of your bombs around your flag?”
“Well, it said I could put them however I want. I didn’t realize that I needed to set them up in any kind of strategic way.”
“For Stratego. You didn’t realize you needed to use strategy for Stratego.”
“Correct.”
The baby, despite reportedly playing this game before, wasn’t much better. And we crossed off, “General of any armed forces” of our mental list of career paths that we might encourage after seeing that his strategy was basically, “Uh, don’t attack this. It’s nothing. Honest.” All of this strategic failure led to the husband and I saying, “Strategery,” a number of times, which made us need to watch a YouTube compilation of Dubya’s more absurd moments, which made us laugh until the inevitable, “Holy god that man was president,” depression took hold.
We’re attempting Stratego again tonight, now that the decals are in place and we’re all on the same page as far as the strategy aspect of gameplay goes. It’s cool that we’re able to squeeze some games in because it’s indicative of the baby being more mature about getting homework and piano practice done with only a minimal amount of histrionics. It’s been way less upsetting and stressful for me and I keep saying, “Quaaality tiiiime,” in my best Diane Keaton voice. Because Baby Boom was my favorite movie when I was, like, 11 before re-watching it post-feminist-awakening-working-mom-existence made it almost excruciating, analytically speaking.
* I maintain that Monopoly does indeed suck. But I also suck at it and I mostly just don’t get it at all and I suppose that this comes as no surprise to people who read my uber-commie rant about privatized healthcare on Facebook this morning. Comrades or whatever. Cranium is the jam, though.
As I mentioned in my last post, I forgot to ask the neurosurgeon what physical activity would be safe for me with my herniated discs. I hadn’t really exercised at all since December 15, when I took a Pilates class that nearly killed me. It was only a 30-minute class and I spent about 15 of those minutes sprawled on my mat, in tears from the pain. The combination of the pain and just not knowing what was wrong with me (and, yeah, the laziness that the holidays always inspires in me) made me stop exercising altogether.
I’m assuming that jogging is out for awhile, as the impact could be too harsh, and with my left arm kind of weak and my neck only comfortable in certain angles, that limits what I can do. But I wanted to do something because I want to keep my muscles limber so that when I can jog and do yoga and Pilates again, I won’t be starting all over. I figured that riding the stationary bike would be a good solution.
Today, I dusted off my workout clothes and climbed onto the stationary bike armed with my iPhone and an unwatched episode of Hoarders on Netflix. I did a fairly low-key 30 minutes on the bike at various intensities and cleared almost 7 miles in 30 minutes. It felt so SO good to sweat again.
Here’s me, trying to take a picture of my post-bike glow while not being a creeper in the locker room. Please note how the new haircut will not be contained.
After the Great Race, I got it into my head that I wanted to do the half-marathon for the Pittsburgh Marathon in May. I bought a training app a few months ago and nervously looked forward to January 9th, 2012, when I would start my training plan. Well, that’s today, and I think it’s safe to say that I probably won’t be better in time to go from 5k jogger to half-marathon runner by May. This bums me out. But it’s just not meant to be this year. So, my new goal is to 1) heal, 2) run the Great Race 10k in September, and 3) run the half-marathon in May 2013. Think I can do it?
I had my big appointment with the neurosurgeon this morning. The main piece of news that I have to share is that I don’t have to have surgery. At least not yet. I’m going to do physical therapy for a month. If things aren’t getting better after that, then I’ll get some injections (ew). And if I’m still messed up, then I’ll have surgery.
The other piece of news is that I have two herniated discs, not just one.
And that’s…about all I got from the appointment. I had a list of questions prepared, like how might I have possibly done this, how exactly does one heal a herniated disc, what physical activity is safe for me at this point. But as soon as it was clear that I wasn’t about to go under the knife, my mind kind of went blank.
I was also kind of flustered by the whole experience. My appointment was in the Hillman Cancer Center, which was packed with people even at 9 in the morning. I overheard that the doctor that I was there for sees about 70 patients a day. Plus the various conditions of the people in the waiting room was upsetting. I felt kind of silly even being there for my neck as I gave up my seat so that a daughter could sit next to her wilting mother. I ended up only seeing the actual doctor for maybe two minutes.
And, you know, none of that REALLY bothers me. I just wish I would have been as businesslike in response, you know?
But, on the cool side, I got a disc of my MRI images. It took me a minute to figure out how to look at them in a way that made it obvious what I was dealing with, but…whoa.
I also got a kick out of getting a peek at stuff like my brain. In some views I can clearly see my cerebellum (yes, I had to look that up; 8th grade anatomy was a long time ago) and the fibers and whatnot that it contains. Crazy.
So, this is good. To be honest, I had kind of pumped myself up for surgery, since my PCP seemed so certain about it, and saw the bright side of it being that I would be fixed sooner rather than later. But I’m definitely cool without it for now.
I have clear memories of doing this meme for many years and I even went through my LiveJournal archives looking for previous volumes. I can’t find them at all. Did I dream that I was doing them? Could I not dream more interesting things? Like, interesting but not as disturbing as the dream that I had last night in which I made kitten soup? (I blame the Percocet for that one.)
1. Where did you begin 2011?
At my mother-in-law’s. I was not pleased. The sister-in-law and her boyfriend were driving up from DC and the husband had to go DJ, so I was there with my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law, which is fine. However. The MIL and her mom insisted upon watching Wild Hogs which is really, really terrible. Then the husband texted to tell me that he was just going to stay out, which made me incredibly angry. The sister-in-law and boyfriend-in-law showed up a few minutes before 12 and brought those little canned Blanc de Blancs from Sofia Coppola. They were surprisingly not bad but I was very upset that I didn’t get to kiss the husband at midnight.
2. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Ran two 5ks. The Race for the Cure I don’t really count since I was forced to walk so much of it, but the Great Race was awesome. I really got why people like running races so much.
3. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Last year I said that I wanted to jog more and figure out a way to work it into almost every day. I didn’t quite accomplish this, though I was pretty good about going to the gym at work every day. The last few months of this year I got knocked off of my schedule and am definitely feeling crappy because of it. I’ve obtained a treadmill and want to get it set up in my house, which requires a room that’s been in progress for a long time to get finished so that I don’t always have to stress about fitting a workout into my workday if I can’t do so. I also have a lofty goal of running the Pittsburgh Marathon half marathon in May, but because of my recent injury I don’t know if I can swing that. I haven’t jogged in a few weeks because of it and I imagine it could be at least a month before I’m able to do so again.
4. Were you in school (anytime this year)?
Nope! I still have no desire to do any extracurricular learning.
5. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but some friends of ours are expecting baby #2 in 2012.
6. Did anyone close to you die?
No, thankfully.
7. What places did you visit?
Washington, D.C., Detroit, MI.
8. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Good health. I mean, I’m not riddled with disease but I’m potentially facing surgery and that’s scary. So no more of these things, thankyouverymuch.
9. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
September 25, 2011: I ran the Great Race 5k. December 6, 2011: my kid turned 10.
10. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
The Great Race 5k, taking really good care of my mental health, overcoming a really difficult professional situation.
11. What was your biggest failure?
I felt like I had less patience than ever with my kid. His tweenness is at odds with my inability to deal with snotty behavior. I’m trying, but it’s really hard.
12. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Yep. I ran over my toe with the dishwasher. That toenail finally fell off and is slowly being replaced with this tiny, total failure of a nail. I’m far too embarrassed to get a pedicure now, which sucks. I hope it gets better. I also herniated a disc in my neck somehow because I’m talented like that.
13. What was the best thing you bought?
Workout clothes. Spare tshirts and whatnot are fine but dedicated workout clothes are a treat.
I bought WWE tickets for the baby twice, which is not at all my cup of tea but he had a blast.
Our kitten!
iPhone 4S!
Sade tickets!
My kid’s 10th birthday party at Games N’At!
And I’m going to say that laptop that I impulsively purchased because I eventually made the responsible decision to return it and not accrue that large chunk of credit card debt.
14. Whose behavior merited celebration?
I’m always proud of my kid. He is, indeed, being a very trying individual but he has moments of being aware of how uncool that is.
15. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I can’t really talk about it.
16. Where did most of your money go?
Repeated answer from last year (SIGH): All of my money went to paying the bills that I can pay right now. None of it went to savings or toward paying the bills that I can’t pay right now (student loans). And that’s all I want to say about that because it’s so embarrassing and depressing that I don’t want to get into it.
17. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I’ve had a kind of cheesy year where I have moments of being aware of how much good I have in my life and how much I love the people in it. I’ve always been such a sourpuss and to be able to be present and grateful has been very exciting.
18. What song will always remind you of 2010?
“By Your Side” by Sade
19. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? I think I’m about the same. I would have been thinner but the one-two punch of my neck putting me firmly on my ass for the time being, getting a little depressed and therefore overeating because of that, and the massive food fest of the holidays has me on the pudgier side of things for sure.
c) richer or poorer? Richer. In many ways.
20. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Same as last year: Reading books, taking pictures, writing, and being with people. I’ll also add that I wanted to jog more, do more yoga, and roller skate more. In 2012, after my neck is fixed, I’m going to go nuts.
21. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Whatever it was that caused my disc to herniate.
22. How did you spend Christmas?
Same as always: Christmas Eve was at my mother-in-law’s. Christmas morning was at our house, then we went to my mom’s house, then we went to the husband’s family’s house. There was a, um, high-spirited game of Cranium that nearly ended in fisticuffs.
23. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Yep. The baby is the love of my life. The husband and I have been together for 11 years and married for 5. And on more than one occasion, I looked at him and thought, “God DAMN!” That’s a good thing, right?
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, True Blood, Bored to Death, Whitney, 2 Broke Girls, Beavis and Butthead, and I just recently started devouring American Horror Story.
25. What did you do for your birthday in 2011?
We had a small party at my mom’s house and went trick-or-treating. I also co-opted the Louis CK show that happened like a week later as part of my birthday celebration. The husband and I went to Morton’s beforehand which was CRAZY DELICIOUS. Drinks with JiveTurkey happened after the Louis CK show, which is always fun.
26. What was the best book you read?
The Great Gatsby and Slaughterhouse Five (I’ve been trying to read a lot of books that I should have read by now.)
27. What did you want and get?
New Christmas stockings (I’m blaming the pain medication, but I went on Pottery Barn Kids a week before Christmas and got us all fancy stockings with our names embroidered on them. Including the cats.)
A new iPhone. Mine was still functioning but really slow and old.
28. What did you want and not get?
I wanted to qualify for the public service loan forgiveness program but I am just TOO RICH (lulz). So, I’m back to the drawing board figuring out how to pay my loans. WHATEVER.
29. What was your favorite film of this year?
I have such a hard time remembering what movies I’ve seen. Wikipedia to the rescue! The Muppets was rad, I liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I imagine I would have liked Drive if I hadn’t been drunk when I went to see it. The Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean installments that came out were good. Rango was rad. Limitless was meh. I did not love Bridesmaids as much as everyone told me I should. Super 8 was cool. Bad Teacher had its moments. The Rum Diary was great. Immortals was decent.
30. Did you make some new friends this year?
Yeah. I think I sort of opened up to people I already knew more.
31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
The Steelers winning the Super Bowl. Duh.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
My stock answer is “dressed.” But I did make an effort to look a little bit nicer this year.
33. What kept you sane?
My therapist and some related pharmaceuticals. Taking frequent breaks from life. Jogging. Yoga.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Louis CK
35. What political issue stirred you the most?
I really shut down my emotions with regard to politics this year. I just can’t do it anymore. And, yes, I realize that I’m able to do this because I’m extremely privileged.
36. Who did you miss?
Frank. Bolt. Anybody who I don’t get to see once a week.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
When I found out about my herniated disc, I had a couple of emotions run through me immediately. Relief, because it wasn’t something really terrible. Confusion, because how did I do this to myself? And fear/worry, because the strong possibility of surgery in my future and the relative seriousness of this injury threw me. Since then I’ve done a lot of googling and a lot of rationalizing. I’m not in constant pain so maybe I won’t need surgery, etc.
Wednesday night, we took the baby to the WWE show. Tickets to that were his big present this year. The husband and I just can not get into wrestling, but the baby really loves it so we go. The show was long and somewhere around the three-hour mark, I began to notice some pain. When we got home, I took one of the painkillers and relaxed.
A few hours later, the painkiller had worn off, and I had a hard time settling into a comfortable position in bed. This frustrated me and suddenly all of the emotions that I’d been swirling around burst out. The husband was concerned that the tears were all due to pain.
“No. I’m in pain but I’m mostly just scared and upset.”
He talked me down and I sat up for a bit to drink some water and pet the cats who had come to check on me when they heard me crying. The husband scooched up and kissed my neck. It felt better after that.
So! Last Friday, I had my MRI. It was not bad at all. The only questionable part was when I was in the tiny waiting room with the other patients and someone who, I think, had taken sedation was coming out of her MRI and having a rough time coming to. She notified everyone of this by SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER. “NO! NO! NO! WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?” The other to-be-MRIed patients and I shot our heads up (gingerly, in my case) from our 1998 issues of Redbook and peered, frightened, down the hall. It was not the most reassuring sound for an MRI n00b like me. The nurses saw us getting ready to lose our shit and started shushing the woman and quickly got her out of earshot.
The MRI itself was fine. I was in the tube for about 20 minutes and didn’t really experience any feelings of claustrophobia or anxiety. The noise didn’t really bother me, either. I guess all of these years of listening to pounding dance music were good for something. After that was over, I set about the rest of my Christmas activities.
I know I say this every year, but our tree this year was the best.
It didn’t look that huge at the lot, but once we got it set up and the branches had a chance to settle, we realized that we had a gorgeous, wonderfully fragrant, evergreen beast. It bears repeating:
Christmas itself was awesome, if exhausting. I love the shit out of Christmas.
So, Tuesday I called the get the results of my MRI, which ended up being a bit of an ordeal. My doctor was at a different office than where my results were and would need to call me back later. But the office where my results were closed early. This was particularly upsetting, since the nurse had told me, “Yeah, you definitely have something going on there.” In the hours during which I had plenty of opportunity to obsess over what this meant, I had pretty much written my will because “something going on” had become flesh-eating alien brain tumor in my mind.
We had to go to PetSmart that night because the kitty litter situation in our house had gone all wrong, with both cats completely saturating the litter in their box and then revolting against us. One pooped on the floor, another puked. It was anarchy. So we were in the middle of spending a somewhat absurd amount of money on a second litter box, a 42 pound bag of litter, and other stuff and I was scrunching up my face at the wet cat food when my doctor called.
He said stuff about C5 and C6 and whatnot and then told me what was the problem: a herniated disc. As he was giving me the information for the neurosurgeon that he recommended, I interrupted him and said, “I have to have surgery?” My doctor was certain that I do, but I’m hoping that neurosurgeon will want to try something else first. Getting my neck cut open and whatnot is rather freaky and I’m not a fan of having surgery whatsoever.
So. That’s what’s going on. Thankfully, I’m not in constant pain. I only notice it when I make an effort to correct my posture from my Nosferatu stance, and I can definitely feel something hitting a nerve all the way down my arm. And my fingers and arm are still numb and tingly, but I haven’t really lost any function in them.
So my neck woes haven’t exactly improved. The muscle relaxers and painkillers that I got from MedExpress did indeed help, only to reveal that I still had a great deal of tightness in my neck and this really cool new feature where my left arm and my left thumb and index finger were kind of numb. I called MedExpress and explained what was going on in a please-let-it-be-nothing, “That’s okay, though, right? Loss of feeling? Right?” nonchalance and they explained slowly that this was a cause for concern. They made me call my doctor, my doctor ordered me to go get X-rayed, and this morning I met with my doctor.
I had the unique experience of explaining that I did this to myself in my sleep, though I’m now realizing just how embarrassing that is and need to get a better story. “Oh, you know, I was on safari and had to tackle a lion. Yeah, my neck hurts but I messed that lion UP!” But, no, 33 is apparently the age where you just spontaneously injure yourself. Which I guess is why the cashier at CVS, after surveying my haul of Aleve, heating pad, and Ben-Gay, suggested that I get a Craftmatic adjustable bed. (She’s buried in my yard now.)
The X-rays showed that my vertebrae were slightly out of whack, most likely due to me stiffly holding my neck at a weird angle for two weeks, and were pushing on a nerve which was causing the numbness. I need to get an MRI done to make sure I haven’t completely mucked things up and in the meantime I get to take steroids to reduce the inflammation. “The steroids will make you hyper, and hungry, and…angry,” she explained. Sweet! I can’t wait to tear downstairs on Christmas morning and bite the tree in half. Here’s what I’ll be wearing:
"HULK MAKE TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS MORNING BREAKFAST OF PANCAKES AND BACON! HO HO HO!"
I was slightly disappointed that they didn’t give me any kind of neck brace. I was really hoping to perfect my impression of Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles.
I also went ahead and took her offer of a Percocet prescription because it makes a dandy eggnog. I am currently on EIGHT different medications for various ailments and I told Tracey last night that my purse now sounds like Paul Abdul’s with all of those pills rattling around.
