Gaining traction

[greatbear]

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!

Comments

[jrjarrett.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you are on the mend pretty well - if you can frame in skylights, you can't be all that far off back to normal!!! Glad to hear!

[putzmeisterbear.livejournal.com]

Your progress since you got out of the hospital is really wonderful. And thinking of Rush Limbaugh should be enough to get you off narcotics.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

You don't mention the content of the multiple bathroom trips, but opiates do tend to be constipating - and when one tapers off, the gut can swing back the other way. If it continues, you should bring it up with your doctor. My non-doctor suggestion would be Citrucel - it's non-fermentable fiber so it won't bring another kind of wind to your home, and it's available in caplets so you don't have to choke down some thick "drink mix" kind of thing. I found the stuff invaluable after having my gall bladder out, and while getting used to one of my diabetes meds.

Given the severity of the pain you were dealing with, there's no shame in having to taper off the pain meds rather than just quit abruptly.

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you are minding just fine.

Glad some necessary house maintenance issues are getting dealt with before the high cold season arrives.

[maxauburn.livejournal.com]

I don't believe you'll end up like Rush Limbaugh, but I know from my own experience - weening one's self from heavy duty pain killers is rough!

A tornado in MD? Wow! It did get very windy here in Pa, was wondering what that was all about.

You are making big progress! Great!

Wishing you success with recovery and getting the roof fixed!!

[danlmarmot.livejournal.com]

Projects are a wonderful way to focus, aren't they? Good luck with all that--especially all the attic framing. Blech, I hate working in attics.

[geometrician.livejournal.com]

It sounds as though things are moving forward for you. I know this long, slow recovery is frustrating. I think your concerns about symptoms you are having are good ones; make sure you keep track of them and how they change so that you can report them accurately.

Pain medications taken as prescribed for legitimate pain almost never results in dependency. In treating literally thousands of people with opioids, in fact, I've never known any of them to become addicted when following the directions. People who take them for extended periods will develop a tolerance to the drug that means they need a higher dose to achieve the same effect. However, this is not addiction. One of the most difficult barriers that my patients have to get over is reluctance to use their medications. If you feel the dose in the Percocet is too large, then ask your prescriber if they would give you some plain oxycodone, without the added acetaminophen, in smaller dose tablets that you can taper more easily. The symptoms you describe as withdrawal symptoms could be from too rapid of a decrease in dosing, but they also could be from increasing pain that you have grown accustomed to being better controlled. If you are able to do without, great. If your pain is keeping you from functioning, then it may be a bit early to back off.

I'm looking forward to hearing more about your progress. All the best!

[2stroker.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy for you that things are finally getting better.You'll get past the drug thing because you want to so don't worry about it but please take it slow with all this working around the house stuff man.Give yourself some time to really heal.