I've been a blogging slacker lately so let's do a little catch up, shall we?
Several weeks ago, something went wrong with my body. The muscles on the left side of my spine tightened up for some reason and got to the point where I went to the doctor. I wasn't quite to the point of moving my whole body instead of just my neck, like Dr. Evil, but I could see that it was headed that way. This isn't the first time that I've been in for some muscle problems and the doctor hooked me up wit the usual cocktail: anti-inflammatory, muscle relaxer, and a pain reliever. I went to my massage therapist a couple of times and things seemed to be going right back to normal, as they had always done.
Then something went dreadfully wrong with the front of my body. The abs on the left side of my body tightened up and hurt all the way down to the point where my doctor and I are now a lot more intimate as he checked for a *cough* hernia. No hernia. Time to stop all activity and see if rest fixed the problem. If not, I was going to have to go in for an ultrasound to see if I had torn something in my abs.
Not working out and not doing karate is hard on me. I imagine that it's hard on me as it is for a lot of people to actually get motivated to go and do them. On top of that, I'm the instructor in both cases so I have to stand there and watch everyone else do what I want to do. That said, there is something very motivating for a guy to avoid doing things that hurt his you-know-whats.
That seemed to be going away so one Monday, I decided to try some light upper body work with some 15 pounds dumbbells. No ab problems (or anything lower) but the pain in the left side of my back came back with a vengeance. Serious, serious. Worse than original.
All of that is the back story to get into the real story.
I went back to my doctor.
Let me point out right here that before I moved here, I had a great doctor. Loved this guy. Knew my activity level and was familiar with my migraines (which have quit since I stopped doing the cop thing - stress induced, ya think?). Since moving out here, I have gone to several different doctors looking for one that I could build up a new rapport with and have switched doctors with every new problem that has come up over over the last 6 years.
Then we got a new doctor out here and I like this guy. This is my new go-to guy to keep my body up and running through the punishment that I'm going to mete out upon it. In fact, the company that he works for was threatening to move him and I stepped in to fight that (the doctor didn't want to be moved either) and now he's going to be staying for a while.
So, while this rant may be a bit lengthy, I want to it to be clear that I am very happy with my doctor.
So, I went back to my doctor. We talk. He does a bit of poking and prodding. We talk about pain management because I can't sleep because of the pain. He decides that I better go in for an MRI to check my spine. He wants to check where the pain is, obviously, but also wants to look at my neck and then we decide to just do the whole spine (C, T, and L) so that we have a base to work from for the future, even if there isn't a problem in the Cervical or Lumbar region.
He hooks me up with the referral and I call for an appointment and 2 days later, I'm doing a 90 minute meditation in the tube. I know it freaks a lot of people out but at one point, when the machine wasn't running, I fell asleep.
I schedule an appointment with my doctor on the way back because I'm going to be heading out of town for a week and just want to make sure everything is set.
Up to this point, everything is going like clockwork and I'm feeling good about the steps we're taking. Then it all seemed to fall apart.
I met with my doctor. He hadn't gotten the results back on the MRI yet but expected them in the next day or two. He would call me when he got them and we could discuss the next step. We talked about what I could and could not do and I went on my trip.
He didn't call me that week.
When I got back, I was extremely busy for a few days catching up on things and I was actually starting to feel a little better so I didn't feel rushed as far as my back went. On Thursday though, I called to find out why I hadn't heard from the doctor. He still didn't have the results from the hospital on the MRI. They were going to send a new request for the results and he would call me when he had them. Fine.
Halfway through the next week, I still hadn't heard from him. I called the doctor's office. They still didn't have the results from the hospital. What?
So, I did what I always do in these situations.
I told my wife.
If you're screwing around with this family or its finances in any way, you do not want to receive "the call" from my wife. If you're dicking around with the health of anyone in this family, you *definitely* do not want that call. Whereas, I've been told several times that people are intimidated by me in person, I don't carry that off on the phone but my wife more than makes up for that. She has the ability to do telephonic attitude adjustments that puts my physical abilities to shame. We make a good team.
She called the hospital. 15 minutes later, my doctor has the results on his fax machine.
I call him the next day so that he's had time to review the report. He's with a patient but he calls me back pretty quickly.
There is a bulged disc in my back where I'm complaining the most about but there is a worse one that is impinging the nerves in my neck and that's probably the pain that is radiating up into my neck, out over my shoulder, and down the left side of my spine. Good thing we did the extra check instead of just focusing on the Thoracic region.
I need to see a neurosurgeon to talk about options. He tells me that I can come pick up a new prescription (because the pain med I was on makes my stomach queasy), pick up a referral to a neurosurgeon, and a get a copy of the MRI report from the hospital (remember this fact for later in the story). Give him about 15 minutes and then pick it up.
I was doing something with Trey so I wait an hour and go up. I get the prescription and the copy of the MRI report (remember to remember this) but the M.A. has not done up the referral yet. The office will call me when it's done.
No one calls me that day.
The next day, I just go up to the office. Remember, I'm the in-person guy. The office is only a mile from my house so it's not inconvenient to just stop in. They can't find the referral. I just stand there waiting as they hunt all over the office until they find it. I take my referral and go home to make my appointment.
The number to call for the appointment is wrong. No apparent fault on my doctor's office for this because the answering machine that I get tells me that if I'm trying to get the neuroscience division, I should call a different number, and the voice gives me the number.
I call the new number. No one answers. My call will be taken in the order that it was received. I here this message several times, every few minutes, until I'm finally just switched over to voice mail. I leave my name and number so they can call me back so I can make an appointment. You know what happens next right.
They don't call.
I have to go to work. You know what I did to fix the problem, right?
I told my wife.
She calls me at work to tell me that she has run into a roadblock. The neurosurgeon won't make an appointment until they have a copy of the MRI report. She called my doctor's office and they said they haven't received the MRI report yet (you remember, right?) from the hospital. She called the hospital and they said they faxed the report and have confirmation that the report was sent.
I tell my wife that I know that it was sent because I picked up a photocopy of the damn report from my doctor's office. I tell her where my copy is and her new plan is take my copy up to the doctor's office and have them fax it to the neurosurgeon (and watch them do it to make sure that it's done). She calls the doctor's office to tell them her plan and wonder of wonders, they have found the MRI report and they have faxed it to the neurosurgeon.
This, of course, was resolved at 4:55 pm on Friday night so there is nothing else that can be done at this point.
And, that's where we are now.
Monday, I will be calling the neurosurgeon to make sure that they actually got the report and find out how long I can expect to wait before I give up on them calling me to make my appointment so I can have my wife call them and fix it all again.
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