Birthday … A week ago dear readers I turned well …. Yeah I’m gonna say it …. 44 and let me tell you lately I’ve been feeling all of those years. More on that in a moment. It was a good birthday. Pretty low key, which is how I like em. The day before my work peeps took me to lunch. On my actual birthday the boss and my department took me to lunch (It was a Friday and many of my work peeps are doing the 10 hour days so they can have Friday’s off thing to save “gas”) So I was treated to lunch on two days and it was very nice. I didn’t necessarily have “time” for it but it was nice to get out of the office and enjoy some fellowship, comradery, and good food and a break from the insanity that was a Friday at work. That night my parents and brother and Sister in Law took me to dinner. All I really wanted for my birthday was a nice Steak. I got it and enjoyed the haties out of it. Don’t get me wrong I enjoy celebrating my birthday I just as I’m getting older don’t want the attention. Not because of the number but because … well…. I don’t give the same energy back to my friends on theirs and that makes me feel really shitty. I want to give that energy but I’m just exhausted from giving my energy to so many things. Yes I am well aware of how lame that sounds …. Just give it to me ok.
Doctors/Kidney Stone … Around Thanksgiving my back started
bothering me really bad. During “Covid” my General Practice doctor left his
practice and started a practice for 65 and older crowd focused on I guess Medicare/Medicaid
? AKA I was out cause as I stated previously, I am well under that number. I
wasn’t “needing” a doctor and didn’t want to venture into the places where the
sick people might be mingling so I didn’t do anything about it. A few times I
masked up and went to an urgent care for a steroid shot or an antibiotic and
went on with my life. So when I called the old place that I used to go to with
my old GP and was like “I have done something to my back” the nice lady on the
phone basically said go fuck yourself. With people out with the Flu and
vacations being scheduled for holidays the earliest I could get in would be January.
I was like are you kidding me right now? She said no. I said bye. I suffered
through it taking an anti-inflammatory pills that I had from when I had hurt my
knee and some “over the counter” pain relievers to help me sleep but every morning
it was like I’d get out of bed and someone would shank me in the lower part of
my back in the exact same place every single day. At one point I even thought I
had Sciatica and would try to do the “exercises” I found online for it. FIRST
OFF WHY DOES EVERY BACK REMEDY START WITH GET YOUR ARSE ON THE FLOOR. If I
could get off said floor that would be different but cheese and rice man I can’t
do that. I’d try and I’d fail every time. There were a few times that I almost
threw up from the pain and several other times that I let the pain get the best
of me and had to clean up the results of that. I’ll spare you those details.
Needless to say I finally had enough and right around Christmas/New Years drug myself to the Urgent Care cause there was no way this was “just a strained back” anymore. I started having dreams about the pain I was in. Like full on technicolor dreams about going to the doctor getting an x-ray only to discover a broken hip, or a broken back, or that I was in the middle of a heart attack and the nightmare that followed. I had been resting it and babying it and lathering up in the muscle spasm creams and sprays just to be able to walk across a room. Jokes on me it was January before I could see anyone anyway. Well played nurse … well played.
The Urgent care discovered that I had a UTI and also took an x-ray that upon review revealed that I also had what appeared to be a LARGE Kidney Stone. They sent me to a Urologist. The first thing he did was take a urine sample then send me for a CT where I had to lie on my back perfectly still for like 10 minutes. When I went to get up I almost passed out the tech did too. She said I got super pale and made me immediately sit back down. I was glad it was angry so that they could really see it in all it’s pissed off glory. Then…. I went back to work.
Two days later he called, during my staff meeting, to say I had a 7mm kidney stone at the base of my kidney. It seemed logged in there and then he said the thing that scared me more than anything else … I don’t know that this is going to solve your back problem, but it needs to be dealt with. I almost burst into tears but regrouped and said ok so now what. He was going to schedule my surgery to have Non-Invasive Extracorporeal Shock Wave Lithotripsy (ESWL) cause he didn’t believe I’d be able to pass it. That long ass word is basically the use of sound waves to crush the kidney stone into smaller pieces so that they can more easily pass through the bladder.
The immediate unknown hit me hard and frankly scared the shit out of
me. However, it got scheduled and I prepared myself for my first ever surgery
just after my 44th birthday (that’s right it would be on Feb 1st
… so we are now 4 months into this process). Sure, I had had my wisdom teeth
removed and done a colonoscopy before but nothing like this. It was going to be
an outpatient surgery at the hospital with IVs, a medical bracelet with my name
on it, and wires and stuff and I was to be put to sleep for it. I had a male
work friend who was trying to walk me through all of it cause apparently, he
does this like every 3-6 months. I told him I hope that will not be me. The day of the surgery came the first thing
they did was a scan of my kidneys and lower abdomen I guess to make sure
nothing had moved. Then I told my father goodby and was taken to the back, and they did a
pregnancy test, which was Negative of course. Then … I waited and watched some
TV, that is to say I flipped the channels. I made the mistake of leaving my
phone at home (one more thing to deal with I told myself) I missed it so during
that hour and a half or so.
Next thing I know we are waiting on the anesthesiologist who eventually showed up and spent about 10 minutes telling me how small my mouth/throat was and that he couldn’t believe I don’t have Sleep Apnea and suggested I see a doctor about it. I was like um… ok can we focus on the task at hand please. Next thing I know they wheel me down the hall, I transition from the bed to this table thing, I shift into position…. and then…. I woke up in recovery. Like I have zero recollection of anything in between. Which I guess is a good thing. I woke up in the middle of my colonoscopy and I threw up on my dentist during my wisdom teeth removal.
My small throat was killing me …. The nurse lady kept asking if I needed or wanted ice chips and I thought are you crazy my throat doesn’t work. I could barely swallow. I asked if it worked, she said sure honey it did. I didn’t believe her. I just wanted to go home. I stayed there a little while longer while the nurses talked about Rihanna and if she had ever performed at the Super Bowl before. One of the nurses was sure she had and the others were like nah she hadn’t. Then they talked about last years Super Bowl halftime show naming all the hip hop stars, and they couldn’t remember Mary J or Eminem. They kept saying you know it had Snoop and Dr. Dre and those other people and when I yelled out Mary J they were shocked I was even sitting there. Ice lady came over to see if I was ok but one of the other nurses said she’s right Mary J was there and proceeded to round out the guest list. Then the nurse that was sure Rihanna had went to the all mighty google to confirm she was right only to lean she was thinking of the Grammys and played Disturbia at near high volume for much longer than I feel she should have.
That was my cue to leave. No offense to Rihanna but yeah it was time. I got dressed and was wheeled out of the hospital to my dad’s car. He stopped to pick up medicine at Wallgreens (that was not mine – he’d have to go back later for that) and we finally made it home. Mom had asked earlier in the week what I might want to eat and I requested plain white rice with a little butter. I promptly thew that up and went to bed. I slept for the next 9 hours. Got up, ate some saltines and took the only pain pill I’ve taken so far and then went back to bed where I slept in 2 hour intervals that night. The next day was more of the same. I’d wake up be groggy as hell, sit there for 15-20 minutes and pass out for about 2 hours and start the cycle again. I guess around 6:30 that night I finally got up and ate something real and stayed up the rest of the night in hopes of a better night’s sleep that night. I was proud to report that my back pain was nearly nonexistent unless I had a full bladder then it was more of the same. However, I was considering it a win. In all of this I only missed 2 days of work. The day for the surgery and the day after. I’m not sure if I’m proud of that or not to be honest. I have spent the last few days trying to pass these things so I can move on with my life to hopefully never do this again.
Rest…. I suck at rest. When I’m resting I’m thinking about all the thousands of things I should be doing while resting which means 1. I’m not enjoying the rest … 2. I’m not really resting at all and 3. I’m also not accomplishing the thousands of things I'm thinking about which amps me up even more. Even on typical weekends I know there are things I should be doing but I don’t do them and instead watch mind numbing TV or play games or scroll on my phone kicking myself for not doing all the things instead of “wasting time” when “wasting time” is what my body is telling my brain I need to be doing but then my brain isn’t letting me enjoy it. Golden was quite proud I took 2 days for my surgery she wanted me to take more but I think also understood my need to make sure things at work were handled. I did at least work from home (more cause I had to than by my choice) so it wasn’t quite as grueling but still. That being said on Monday I’m going to sell back 40 hours of Vacation to my work. I’m not going to use it and I might as well get paid for it instead of losing it. So what I am saying is I’m still learning what “rest” is and how to use it.
Music/Convert Tickets…. Buy the freaking concert tickets or don’t. Just stop with the bitching. Is it stupid expensive to go to a “concert” yes …. Are these acts jumping through more hoops than ever to make shows even happen, also yes. It’s not ticketmaster, it’s not scalpers, it’s the fact that when they put an insane price on a pair of tickets (and we aren’t even talking a decent pair of seats at this point) people are still buying them. Taylor Swift fans weren’t bitching about the price they were bitching that they sold out before they could get in to buy them at that stupid price. Beyonce fans were the same way, bitching about the price as well as how quickly they sell out. Get the tickets or don’t. Honestly I don’t care but be pissed off about the right thing. Complain to the right people. The idea that Congress is going to possibly take this up is just blowing my mind. Congress hasn’t and can’t solve a damn thing but yeah let’s focus on this. Let a Beyonce tour not sell a ticket, let an Ed Sherran sell out half a stadium, let Taylor not fill the seats and see if those prices don’t come down but that’s not going to happen. There is always going to be someone perfectly happy to pay the insane price for your seat. When I saw Ed a few years ago in TN I admit I overpaid for my seats. When I got there, I was damn proud to have done so. Am I lining back up to see him on his new tour, frankly no. It’s a stadium tour, outside, in the south, during the summer. So many things to factor in…the weather, the heat, the uncomfortableness of the day. I love the new album and I still love the man but I’ve seen him do his thing in really great seats and now I’ll just watch youtube clips. Let someone else have my seat. However, if I did decide to jump back in the ring I’d pay the extra money for the decent seats. You will too. Sop acting all high and mighty as you pull the credit card out of your wallet.
Now if we are talking about Bryan White just take the wallet do what you need to do and return it afterwards cause I'd pay anything the man asks me to pay and I'd even buy the boy a burger for his troubles. Have I told you guys how much I love that man ?! If not I should do that.
Lent is coming ……. Which means giving things up …….. which for
me typically means social media and soda. Last year I did caffeine in general
which also took out tea and with my recent Kidney stone issues I think I’m going
to do that again. However Lent 2023 starts Feb. 22nd and ends April
8th. My nephew is getting married the first week of March so I’m not
planning to give up social media but I also don’t plan to be on it as much
either. I frankly look forward to this “break” and Lent is a good excuse for
it. However in the lead up to and the aftermath of the wedding I want to see
the messages, the pictures that are shared the fun surrounding it all and to do
that I need to be on all the social sites. Maybe I’ll find something else to
give up along with Caffeine but that’s another post.
Well there you have it …. random conversations from me about very random things I needed to get out of my head. Hope you enjoyed that. There were several other things I'm dying to talk about but those will come in another post.
Marcy (@beaslma)
