Gaining traction

Today I groggily stumbled out of bed after a night before of too many trips to the bathroom and some very strange and severe weather in the middle of the night. It was a gloomy, rainy day before, and by the time evening rolled around, it got very rainy. After midnight, the thunder and lighting started. but it was the unbelievable blast of wind that came up from nowhere that started blowing stuff around outside that worried me. It roared in almost instantly, lasted for no more than about ten minutes and was gone. There was not much damage here, aside from a huge, dead branch torn from my giant silver maple (and one of the tasks I was unable to deal with this year anyway). Further towards Baltimore was a different story. Roofs were torn from buildings, huge trees uprooted, cars thrown about, houses destroyed, all the signs of a tornado. While I've never experienced a tornado firsthand, the roar of the wind last night was unlike anything I heard before, and nothing at all what would happen in the middle of November! The weather is changing, for sure.

Today's PT session went well, but instead of e-stim, I was put in traction as my last phase of therapy. While I doubt I am any taller, it did feel like I was definitely stretched out. Another good sign is that any time I had such a pulling force imparted on my back in the past, I would be in some pretty serious pain afterward. Not today, though, as I shuffle-plodded back to the truck, it felt kinda nice. I have another session on Friday, then I see the doc to either stop, continue or change courses of treatments if necessary. My only real concern at this point is the dead feeling in my feet, and the still occasional spasms and short moments of "disconnecting" feelings in my legs, most often the right.

One more area of concern has been pain management. I've been using oxycodone (Percoset) as my main means of controlling the severe pain I was saddled with both before the surgery and, especially, right after. It has been a big help, but, as I had feared, I had become "accustomed" to the medication over time. I've been using less and less, but in my attempt to switch to plain old acetaminophen or aspirin, I started having withdrawal symptoms, especially at bedtime. Unable to relax, pain surging in and out, nauseous feelings, etc. Last night I made do with half a pill, and all of today I only needed a couple acetaminophen in the beginning of the day. Tonight I will see if I am freed of my back monkey. If not, there's the other half of the pill from the night before. The last thing I need is to be a druggie like Rush Limbaugh.

My order of skylights, the sun tunnel and a large assortment of necessary parts and accessories can in today, a day later than promised. We went out for a quick bite before picking these items up. It was all nicely wrapped up on a pallet, which I had forklifted into the truck for the trip home. Now my living room looks (once again) like a warehouse. Tomorrow I will head up into the attic with the measurements and dimensions, where I will start framing the stuff up. I might even install the sun tunnel on the inside as well, so when the roof is being done, I can have one of the skylights completed right away. The two living room skylights will be installed on the roof, but I will wait until another time to cut out the ceiling from the inside and fab up the shafts. I'd like to take care of a lot of long-overdue painting and finish carpentry work around the same time. So much to do, and it's looking more doable than recent times.

The roofer says he will begin work on Sunday, which is fine with me. I hope to get this all taken care of once and for all, it will be a huge relief for me, I can think about other, better things instead.

Cheers!