Week Six Saturday

Well, as many of you may know by now, doctor's orders are "No walking, no running, blah, blah blah, until pain subsides. Whenever that is. This is really very sad for me and has me asking many questions. Now, before I begin, please take note that I am still under the influence of heavy (and I mean very heavy) drugs. I'm a little shaky, a little nauseous, a little pale, and a lot weak.



Friday started out pretty normal, but by lunch time I was in a wheel chair and unable to move the right side of my body. Heck yeah, it was pretty scary. The nurse brought me a wheel chair and hubby had to come get me. I just kept thinking that if I could get home, take some antiinflammatory meds and get on the sofa with an icepack, I would recover completely. Not so true. Now this not being able to move the right side of my body wasn't like paralysis but like intense pain in the upper part of my leg. My thought was a strained muscle. By the time I got home and hubby and his employee finally got me carried in the house, I could not move an inch in either direction and this is no exaggeration. It was that bad, I tell you. So I started the drug regiment. 2 inflammatory pills, 1 muscle relaxer and an icepack. By 1:00 I was in constant pain and tears. Now, I don't cry. But this chick was squalling and hubby would not leave me alone. This was a good thing because I wouldn't let him. The thoughts of dying alone can be pretty scary. I really thought the next step was death because I didn't think the pain could get any worse than I was feeling. At 2:03 hubby called doctor's office and was switched to an answering machine at the nurses station where he left a message with details and asked them to call back asap. At 3:30 when doctor's office had not called back, he called them again. Now my hubby is slow to anger. He is slow to anger at anything. I could wreck the car, burn down the house or accidentally throw away his favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd CD and he would be upset but not extremely angry I don't think. (I really did throw away his favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd CD, by accident.) Anyway, he was very upset with the doctor's office and they tell him to go ahead and bring me in. But he knows that this is to be no easy task. He can't pick me up, he's already tried and I screamed bloody murder, I can't move, even to simply stand, so we have issues. He calls them back to ask if they have a wheel chair he can borrow and they tell him that if I am in that much pain, we should just go to the hospital. He just hangs up the phone with the look of....something... in his face. By this time, he has called my girlfriend who has arrived after picking up her granddaughter from school and she insists that I need to be seen and should probably go on to the hospital. But, you know me, I am always the indecisive one. I hate to go to the ER or the doctor, for that matter. I just keep thinking I'll get better and soon be miraculously cured of what ever this is I have. My friends granddaughter finally looks at me after a about 30 minutes and says,"You need to make up your mind. I haven't got all day for this. I have a football game to go to." She's 6. Just like her grandmother. Friend leaves and then Lane asks if he can run to the shop to close up and I , through tears, tell him to go ahead. By this time loving daughter #1 has found us a wheel chair and there I sit. Just sit. I can't move so I make the executive decision to go to the ER. I phone hubby and tell him to hurry so we can go to ER. Loving daughter number 2 and boyfriend come in and the 3 of them carry me, in wheel chair outside to car where I finally manage to crawl into the black floor. The inform me later that it takes 45 minutes to get me from house into car.

We finally get to ER at 5:15 and I sit in waiting for 3 hours. I cry the entire time. When I first got there they thought I had chest pains, I should have let them think that so I could have gone back quicker. Anyway, I finally go back at 8:30 and from then on things get kinda blurry. I remember heavy drugs, being cold, being taken to X-ray by a former student who says I am the 3rd teacher to flash him, then to get a CT scan. Finally they determine that I do not have a tumor or any signs of bone cancer. WAS THIS A POSSIBILITY???? I had no idea until everything was over. Anyway, I was diagnosed with bursitis and lots of arthritis in my hip and scheduled to see a bone specialist next week. I was sent home at 12:30a.m. and given instructions for the week-end which included more drugs and crutches. This ain't gonna be fun...