I’m past the initial recovery phase of the epidural catheter spine procedure and am now waiting for the steroids to kick in. I’ve had a couple of setbacks (pun intended). One happened when I tried to lie down on the sofa on my left side instead of my right side (there’s a reason for this—keep reading). I heard and felt a noise like a heavy toy wooden chain being laid down on the floor. That hurt bad enough that it took a couple of days to clear the memory out of my head. The second happened last night, when I dropped a couple of pieces of ice on the floor. I got a little overconfident, forgot my current state, and bent over quickly to pick up the first piece. Ohmydearlord. I left the second one on the floor and headed straight for my pain medicine.
A warning to anyone who undergoes this procedure: try not to cough for at least the first week afterward.
The reason for the right side issue can be found in an earlier post on this blog. The freeze treatment for the spot on my ear absolutely has not worked. I need to go back to my primary care doctor and get a referral to a dermatologist. I don’t know what he can do, but we’ll find out.
By the way, the clip art I’ve used in this post could not possibly be more different from what I saw before I went into the procedure room. I swear, my pain doctor was gowned and goggled in something that looked like it was straight out of the old Heavy Metal magazine. It was black and looked like mad scientist gear. To make things even odder, there was some extremely heavy metal music on the sound system in the procedure room. I have to say that I was more surprised by his “normal doctor” look when he came out and checked on me after the procedure, sans black cladding. Very bizarre, but you’ll get no complaints from me.
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