Good News

My poor Little Pet Blog, I have neglected you so.

I've written previous entries describing the hell I have been going through with chronic back pain. It's been an ongoing battle for too many years to count, but I can finally see light at the end of the tunnel. I hope. On January 15th, I had a Provacative Discogram, a test to determine the next course of action to be taken to finally rid me of this monkey on my back called pain.
You can read all about it in this post;

http://www.kikiscircus.com/2007/12/pain-pain-more-pain.html

So, January 15th rolls around and I am nervous as all hell. I know I am going to be mildly sedated, but still, the thought of big needles going directly into my spine scares the shit out of me. I go into this big sterile room and I'm told to lay face down on the table. The anesthesiologist is chatting with me, trying to get me to relax and he's a pretty cool guy, so my nervousness comes down a notch or two as I lay there waiting for him to put together the cocktail that he's going to shoot into the waiting I.V. in my arm.

Mr. Drug Man: "Okay, this is going to burn a little."

Me: "Holy shit, that burns.......heeeeyyyyyy, I don't feel so nervous anymore."

And that's the last thing I remember. Apparently, one of the side effects of that amazing little cocktail is memory loss. I am totally okay with that even though it is a little creepy. My next memory is of the Doctor waking me up in the recovery room, asking me if I want to see some pictures. He showed me the fluoroscope pictures that were taken during the procedure and it was really wild to see a picture of my spine with 3 needles sticking right in there. He told me I have an annular tear in my L4-L5 disc, and sure enough, I could see the blue dye just flowing right through it.

I don't remember much of the rest of the day. Immediately following the procedure, I had a CAT Scan so they could get a clearer picture of whether there were cracks in my discs in addition to the bulging and the tear. My Dad drove me back to my house and helped me to bed. The pain was immense, but that was to be expected, considering what I had just been through. I anticipated a couple of days rest before I could get back on my feet.

A couple of days turned into almost 2 weeks. The pain was not letting up and I was getting scared. I called my Doc the following Monday and he said to come in immediately for an evaluation. After speaking with me about the level of my pain, slight fever, weakness and just generally feeling like shit, he ordered an MRI to rule out the possibility of Discitis. Discitis is an infection in the disc space, painful for sure and possibly fatal. Fan-fucking-tastic.

I did get some amazing news along with the possibility of devastating news, though. The CAT Scan showed no cracks in my discs. Yippeee!! That means no IDET Therapy, which I described in the above mentioned previous post. I will be getting the Stryker Dekompressor instead. Instead of going into a long drawn out description of this, you can watch a nifty little video about it here;

http://www.webmd.com/video/spine-dekompressor

Two days later I had the MRI, 25 minutes of pure pain on a hard surface, not being able to move whatsoever. Then more waiting until today to find out the results.

No infection!! More yippeeeeeees!! The MRI showed that as a result of the needles or dye, my L5-S1 disc moved 2mm and is now pushing firmly on my nerve root. So, even though the pain is immense and will probably continue to be immense until after the Stryker Dekompressor, it's not gonna kill me. Whew. I'll need to wear a back brace indefinitely though, as using my cane to get around is just making everything worse. It's a rockin' pink cane, but I fucking hate it.

Me, rockin' my pink cane at our "Pimp & Ho Party", May 2007

So, there you have it. The reason why I've been neglecting you, my sweet Little Pet Blog. Sitting hurts and my brain is fried from the pain meds that have been increased the past 2 weeks. I know my writing is suffering as a result of the drugs and for that, I apologize.

I went back to work this past Sunday and boy, oh boy was it wacky. All the weirdness was saving itself up for my return. I've already been sitting for longer than I can handle, so the stories will just have to wait until tomorrow. I'll give you a teaser though, the title is going to be "Crazy Strippers and Crossing the Line." Stay tuned for Strip Club Insanity. Word.