Wild and Wooly Ride

The last ten days have been, as they say, Wild and wooly! A week ago Tuesday, my husband started having pain in is upper back and shoulder area. He had a chiropractor appointment the next day and didn’t feel any better when he left. He worked all day Wednesday and then worked at the temple that night. The pain was getting worse, so we decided that he needed to go back to the chiropractor and see if they could do something to relieve, what he thought was, a pinched nerve. They worked on him for about 3 hours off and on and couldn’t seem to relieve the pain. His pain was pretty intense and even the pain killers and muscle relaxants didn’t help. He couldn’t get comfortable and any position and didn’t get much sleep.

Friday morning he realized that he couldn’t feel the little finger, and the one next to it, on his right hand. At this point he hurt in the middle of his upper back with the pain going all the way thru his chest. His neck was hurting as well and now he had severe pain going down his right arm all the way to the tips of his fingers and he couldn’t feel two of them. Those two fingers were totally numb and he said they felt like rubber. When he moved his neck up or down the pain got worse. The muscle relaxants and pain killers that he was on were knocking him for a loop and barely killing the pain. He hadn’t worked now for two days and this bothered him greatly. A friend of ours worked for a chiropractor who was also a “natural health care doctor”. He took us in right away and proceeded to tell us that he thought TF had a heart attack. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and for a few minutes was totally stunned. He had some kind of “laser” that he put on TF to help revitalize the heart cells and tissue. He shinned his light on TF and told him he had some Gall stones, two stones in his pancreas and two in his liver. He also told him that he had dissolved them and he wouldn’t have to worry about them any more. At this point I started having some doubt about this doctor. We left there wondering what was really going on. TF, still in severe pain, tried to get some much needed sleep.

TF’s pain started getting worse around 4:00am. Saturday morning. He woke me up and told me to take a shower and get dressed. While TF was showering I called our HMO and told them what was happening and she told me to hang up and call 911, that it sounded like he was having a heart attack. I told TF what they had said and he finally decided he had better get “medical” attention. The ambulance arrived very quickly and the ambulance crew evaluated him and said that his EKG didn’t show a heart attack but that he needed to go to the hospital anyway. I followed the ambulance in my car and TF was admitted in emergency room. I gave all our insurance information and they immediately started checking him out. After six hours of tests, they ruled out heart attack, blood clot to the lung and a torn artery in the chest. He had been given two x-rays, an MRI and a Cat Scan. The emergency room doctor said he had gall stones. I asked him how many and they said it looked like a sack of marbles. He couldn’t find a pinched nerve but he said that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one. He sent us home with more pain killers and muscle relaxants and told us to go see the regular doctor on Monday. TF is still in pain and still can’t sleep. I call the HMO and get an appointment for Tuesday because the doctor will not be in on Monday.

Tuesday morning we go to the doctor and tell him the whole story and he excuses himself to go take a look at the MRI, x-rays and Cat Scan. He comes back in and says that he didn’t see a pinched nerve but he thinks that is what is the problem. He did tell us that they noticed a “mass” on his liver and now they want another MRI to check that out. They took blood to see if he has hepatitis. The doctor got us an appointment with the nerve doctor for the next morning. TF is still in server pain and not sleeping. Yesterday we went to the nerve doctor and she said that his C8 nerve is “inflamed” and it will have to heal. She told gave him a shot of some kind of liquid ibuprofen and gave him some different pain killers and a new muscle relaxant and a steroid pack. He will have to go to physical therapy twice a week for four weeks. This new pain killer and muscle relaxant does not make him sleepy and he now thinks he can go to work…He is in business for himself and when you don’t work you don’t get paid…He started feeling better and he actually did work for about four hours yesterday. He came home exhausted but feeling better that he can do some sort of work. Last night he got some sleep…Thank God! I got some sleep too. Yea!

I still have to make several appointments, to get the new MRI and to start his physical therapy. I am more worried about the mass on his liver than anything else. What’s the old saying, “When it rains, it pours”. Well, it’s pouring!! I am thankful that he didn’t have a heart attack and I tell myself that things could have been much worse… While all of this was going on, I had to hold the fort down and try to take care of myself. The project that I had been working on for the church was last Tuesday and it couldn’t be cancelled. If it weren’t for some very good friends, who basically took over the project, I don’t know what I would have done. (I did go in and work for several hours after TF’s doctor appointment.) I thank God for my friends and family. I also thank God for all my blessings and that I still have a husband to take care of. Now I have to finish the taxes, I was almost done when all of this started…It will be a great load off my mind when that is turned in………….As TF. Says, “It’s never boring around the Stern house.”

Now, to stay with the idea of my frugal living blog: Frig Clip: Smelly cutting board?
Manufacturer John Boos & Co. recommends you sprinkle it liberally with salt, then use lemon or lime quarters to rub the salt in. Let it sit for a few minutes, then wipe with a damp cloth. Boos president Joe Emmerich says a good board rubbed periodically with food-safe mineral oil will last indefinitely. “I have some at home that are more than 25 years old,” he says.