16 posts tagged “health”

Hurts like hell.

Sunday morning I woke up with an intolerable pain in my back. I've been seeing my Chiropractor the week before to deal with it as it's been bothering me for almost a month. On this day, however, instead of progressively getting better, it revolted on me causing me what is hands-down the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life, radiating from behind my right shoulderblade, shooting down my right arm. By mid-afternoon, the only position I could get into that felt even remotely comfortable was laying flat on my back with an ice pack on the floor with my arm extended.
After a few hours of that, I sat up and the pain shot down my right arm. I felt like I was stabbed. I tried Ibuprofen & a muscle relaxant- neither worked.
I got on the phone to call the HealthLink service and discussed my symptoms with a nurse. She told me I should "get checked out within the next 4 hours". This was Sunday afternoon at 4:30- few walk-in clinics were still open if they were open at all! She did mention that if I begin to feel numbness in my right arm at all, that I should definitely seek medical attention.
We hopped in the car and head towards the only open clinic near us. Halfway there, my Index Finger on my right hands went almost completely numb. The top of my right thumb and the tip of my right middle finger soon followed.
We changed route to hte Urgent Care centre in South Calgary. Over 4 hours later, I was examined by a doctor and told I have a case of Bursitis in under my shoulder blade. They said the inflammation likely was pinching a nerve causing my fingers and part of my hand to go numb.
Treatment was to take 600mg of Ibuprofen every 4hrs for the next week, dropping to 400mg the following week, and basically not use the arm at all for at least a week, and they provided me with this arm brace to rest my arm in so not to use it.

I didn't sleep at all that night. The pain was intolerable, but it was the numb sensation in my hand that kept me freaked out enough to keep me from falling asleep at all. I'm a bit of a paranoid hypochondriac, so I had visions of falling asleep with a numb hand and waking with a numb- and dead arm. I tried everything to get comfortable, but it didn't happen.
The following day I saw my Chiropractor and confirmed the pinched nerve. The inflammation is still there, but my Chiro doesn't seem to think the nerve is necessarily the RESULT of the Bursitis. We began treatment accordingly, but neither the numbness nor the pain has begun to subside as of yet.
I've seen my Chiro Monday, Tuesday, and will see him again on Thursday. He expects the pain to at least begin to subside by later this week, but the numbness may take "a few weeks, to a few years- or it might be permanent". He's kinda seen it all so there's no real way to give a prognosis for that.
Regardless, I wouldn't wish this kind of pain on my worst enemies. I guess if there was ever a sign that I'm no longer 15 and can punish my body with 12+ hour-long computer sessions anymore... I guess this is it. Getting old officially sucks.

My Chiropractor saved the day again!

On Sunday morning, after getting out of the shower- my entire upper back tensed and seized. It hurt. it hurt like hell. I was standing at the time- and the pain forced me to sit down. I was physically unable to remain standing (at least in that posture). It subsided enough that I was able to get up and move around, but it still hurt. I popped a few Ibruprofen tablets- they did nothing. I put a heating pad on it (for 4-5 hours)- it did nothing. I began to fear the worst- being the hypochondriac that I am, and began looking at symptoms for Meningitis- but the symptoms didn't match: I didn't have a fever, no real severe headaches, and I was able to touch my chin to my chest... even though it hurt like hell.

I left it alone- thinking it would resolve itself. It didn't. The following morning things (initially) got a LOT worse. I couldn't turn my head at all! To look a certain direction I had to physically turn my entire body to that direction. Naturally this made driving VERY difficult. During the day it would relieve, slightly. Even still- I couldn't turn my head more than 45-degrees from looking straight ahead in any direction. The tension in my shoulders radiated to my arms- making them partially numb, and to my legs- resulting in aches and pains throughout.
I gave meds and heat another try- but to no avail.

Sleeping was extremely difficult- my already tense muscles were no longer moving at all, forcing me to change positions sleeping about every 20 minutes. Obviously I didn't sleep well last night as a result- and waking found me in the exact same situation as the morning before: unable to move very much at all.

I had an appointment with my Chiropractor scheduled for tomorrow- but after 2 full days of agony, I called to see if I could bump it up to today. I'm very happy I did.

When I got there, I explained what happened. I told him what I've tried to do to relieve the pain- and how both painkillers and heat failed. Immediately he says,
You've pinched a nerve. If painkillers don't do anything, then it isn't anything muscular- so painkillers won't do anything"

So he put me on the "bed" and began probing my back muscles to get an idea of the 'lay of the land' back there. All along I was terrified that if he tried to crack something that the pain would either send me through the roof- or kill me.
He hit three points along my spine- the last one being towards my lower back (and area almost completely unaffected my my symptoms). They all cracked pretty good- so obviously something was out of alignment.

he asked me,
"Are you stressed?"

I actually LOL'd, thinking to myself "oh if you only knew the half of it", but only responded with "yeah, something like that".

He explained that he could tell just by how a certain area of the spine was misaligned, that I was stressed because that is the area where the Adrenal glands are located, and as we become more stressed, the Adrenal glands work more, ultimately resulting in a shifting-around of things in that area- like the spine itself.

He continued working on me- cracking my neck a few times. Man was that LOUD. And then he worked my sinuses as well- as he usually does when I see him every few weeks. Working the Sinuses alone almost sent me through the roof- but it still wasn't as bad as it was the first time I saw him just over a year ago (it was like someone turned on a faucet in my face- it ALL drained, but only for one day).
This alone was a relief as my sinuses have been going nuts for the past week-and-a-bit because of the weather & climate changes that seem to fluxuate in Calgary. These changes in weather have left my facial sinuses full almost to the point of being numb, and I've been dealing with "popping" ears for several days now. After having my sinuses worked on during my appointment- it's all gone. I can breathe and my ears don't 'pop' every time I chew or 'flare' my ears.

it's been about an hour since leaving my appointment, and the difference- even just while driving back to my office- has been amazing. Driving back, I did a shoulder-check while changing lanes (something that had me in agony on my way to the Chiropractor's office), and realized after doing it that I didn't have to shift my entire body to see behind me- and I could see a lot more of what was behind me!

I'll be so bold as to say that my Chiropractor has done more noticably positive things for me in the past year than a handful of MD's have for me in the past 10 years. I'm positive that if Ihad gone to a walk-in clinic to see a Doctor about my neck & back- they would have prescribed a muscle-relaxant and sent me on my way (not without sitting in a waiting room for an hour, and the examination room for another 20 minutes). And ultimately it wouldn't have resolved the problem anyways!

The bottom line though, having discussed with my Chiro about the root cause of the pain, is that the problem likely stems from a simple source: Stress.
I suspected this might be the case, though I wasn't sure about the techicalities of it. But it does make sense ultimately.

I won't go into a big sob story about the stress in my life right now- but there's a lot. As if everything up until this point in the year (being "let go" from my previous job, nearly having my wife flatline on the operating table during a routine procedure, turning 30, and the misacarriage of our first child) wasn't enough, trying to start a business without ANY start-up capital- effectively working for free for the entire month of November (making rent was fun!), and deciding to move the week of Christmas (which has been an emotional rollercoaster unto itself- but I wouldn't expect certain people to understand that), has definitely taken it's toll on my already-strained stress levels.
The pain I've experienced for the past 3 days is merely a physical manifestation of that stress. So I'm extremely thankful that my Chiropractor is capable to do something that can help relieve the physical pain and pressure. The stress itself, though? That's all up to me to deal with- and maybe it's as simple as saying "No" a little (or a lot) more often- and simply not giving a fuck about anyone elses' opinions or suggestions.

Gee... even that is starting to feel better already.

This week it was announced that a Calgary woman gave birth to identical quadruplets- a rare event. And while for science and nature this is a wonderful event- I, as a Calgarian, wonder about the location of the birth: Great Falls, Montana- about 3-4 hours directly south of Calgary.

The linked article mentions specifically that the family, the Jepps, drove to Great Falls for the delivery because of the bed shortage situation in Calgary hospitals.

This is just another prime example of how pathetic our healthcare system is in Alberta- that it's easier to drive 3-4 hours and be admitted to a hospital in another town/city... or in this case, another country instead of being accommodated at home.

In a way this story is a blessing since it now puts the healthcare crisis in Alberta on an International stage. How is it that the richest province in Canada- a province which claims to be debt-free- cannot invest sufficient money into our healthcare system to accommodate the booming populations of cities like Calgary, Edmonton, and Fort Mac?

Somehow I expect this topic to heat up in the coming days and weeks. Just further proof that rapid growth is not always a good thing.

Stress Relief Kit

This has not been a good week.
This past weekend some shit went down in my life that really shouldn't have become an issue- but it did, and brought my family to the brink of a kind-of 'civil cold war'. The fallout from this has been quite intense for me. I tend not to deal with stress very well, and so when shit goes down, it goes down hard and fast.
As a result, my already-strained stress level was pushed beyond it's brink- and it has begun to affect my physical health once again. Today I stayed home from work because my body has become so exhausted from the continuous onslaught of stress from virtually every faucet of life- that it has slowly begun to shut down once again. This happened before Christmas too. I have no real 'proof' that my recent string of health ailments are stress-related, but I've pretty well ruled out every other possibility over the past year-or-so.

This morning I woke up so fatigued I barely had the energy to walk let alone go in to a high-stress job. And that isn't an exaggeration either. I've been stumbling around since Sunday feeling like my head is in a fog and like I could collapse at any moment (including at the steering wheel) from exhaustion. This morning took everything I had to actually get out of bed. In the end, I ended up calling in sick today and sleeping until 1:00 this afternoon- and even then I still felt extremely groggy and sluggish for the remainder of the afternoon.

The heat in the city lately hasn't helped matters either. While I am already physically fatigued- the added stress of trying to keep cool (our apartment is on the top floor- facing south towards the sun) only further exhausts the body.

So this weekend we are leaving town to once again 'retreat' into the mountains for some much-needed R&R. Ange has been under a lot of pressure too- both from work as well as the same 'cold war' issue from the weekend. We pretty well will have the place to ourselves and have already vowed to a weekend of excessive sleeping and maybe hanging out at the hot springs pool to cool off one evening. Albie will be happy too as he will now have a cool basement to chill out in.

So it appears the stress levels are beginning to go down, and hopefully will melt away the further we get from the city limits tomorrow. The mountains have always been a place of rejuvenation for me, so I'm hoping for a repeat performance again this weekend.

Tonight was the conclusion of my 'Dental Adventure' over the past few months. The mounting of the final crown onto the tooth I'm dubbing 'RC2'- simply because it's a lot easier to refer to than 'the tooth that had the second root canal'.
I really didn't think that this appointment was going to be very significant- literally a pop-the-temp-off-put-the-new-on, in and out in 20 minutes. That wasn't the case. Prior to the appointment I was instructed to take 2 valium prior- and when I got there they offered nitrous! How can I turn down nitrous!? Apparently this would be a 45-60 minute procedure! Wasn't quite expecting that!

But the Valium-Nitrous cocktail took care of all jitters immediately. That, and the vocal trance offerings of DJ Vision, whose two mixes, 'Distant Voices' #1 & 2, have had me addicted since the first time hearing them well over a year ago. I find that trance music- particularly vocal trance, not only helps block out the noise of the procedure- but allows you to focus your mind on something while in such a calmed state. I made the mistake once of listening to something a little 'harder'- like hard house, or perhaps even rap/hip-hop, and the procedure (a filling I believe) wasn't enjoyable at all.

Tonight actually wasn't bad- but it was odd going in at the end of the day as opposed to first thing in the morning like I usually do. I was agitated from work today going in- tired and stressed -and while I don't necessarily feel like I had a more 'relaxing' experience as I do first thing in the morning, it certainly was a nice way to be forced to sit-down and unwind and let your mind drift for an hour.
But everyone at the dentist's office (Dr. Hartley- hope it's cool I mention that) is top-notch, and the work they all do is nothing short of exceptional. It's an environment you feel comfortable going into, with people that don't just see you as a 'client'. I've browsed dental phobia forums over the last several months- and I've read of a lot of people whose dentist does very little to accommodate their patients concerns, and I'm actually kinda proud to say that I don't have to worry about that. I worry a little about what I'll do when he retires!

In the end it feels odd having something in that spot in my mouth again. It almost feels like it's misaligned a little- but it's probably just not being used to it being there. Mouth is a little tender, and the freezing felt really strange afterwards, but more than anything it feels good to have closed this chapter. I put this off for so long out of fear- but I conquered it. A change has been made in my life- and somehow I think there might be a lot more of those coming up.

This has quite possibly been one of the worst weeks in recent memory- and it seems to have affected everyone around me in extremely negative ways, myself included. I've deliberately stepped away from blogging altogether as a result (hence the cryptic Linux-command posting below)- a kind-of stepping 'out of the spotlight' if you will.

Honeymoon: The open road

Personally, I'm burned out- again. Before Christmas I set a mandate that if certain things (my job being a big one) did not improve by April 1st, then I would have to make some changes. So with April 1 being approximately a week away- and reflecting on the emotional torture that this week has brought, I've decided to retreat into the mountains, alone, for the weekend to try and regroup, refocus, and rediscover myself. There is much to ponder in the coming days. Everything from my health, to my career, my relationships, and even my blogging future.

In the meantime- almost as if by fate, I stumbled across a few 'old skool' humor MP3s while browsing through some old CD-R's while packing for my 'retreat' this weekend. So I thought I would post them here in hopes that they can help break through the cloud of perpetual darkness that has invaded our lives this week.

= 16. That's how many hours out of the last 24 that I have spend sleeping. To make it even better- Ange passed out at around 4:00pm this afternoon after nearly slumping over her laptop!

We got home, I was beginning to feel a little bit of pain- not even so much in my mouth- but just a beginnings of a potentially big headache. So I popped some Tylenol Ultra to eliminate that pain. Posted my final entry in the 'Dental Adventures' series- then decided that sitting up wasn't going so well. So I laid down on the couch with a Wiimote in-hand in hopes of playing something.

I laid on the couch, checked out the 'Everybody Votes' channel- answered some new questions. Checked out the 'News Channel' and caught up on some world events. Then I plugged in a classic controller and began to decide what VC game I wanted to play. That was all I remember- passed out on the couch shortly after that. That was around 4:00-ish. Shortly afterwards, that's when Ange started dozing off on her computer, so she decided to go lay in bed for 'a few minutes'.

We both just woke up and it's now 8:00pm. This is almost exactly the kind of true-to-the-core laziness I was wanting out of today. It's been an absolutely wonderful day all around.

And so it is finished. I arrived at the dentists' office for my 8:00am appointment this morning- already nicely drugged and feeling virtually no pain -and left the office at around 2:00pm. Yup- a 6 hour procedure that involved a root canal on all four roots of the infamous tooth-in-question, plus two fillings on the opposite side of the mouth- still on the top, plus a series of 'sealants' in order to help prevent future potential problems on other teeth.

I slept the entire time. I popped my 2 tablets of Valium this morning about 30 minutes prior to the appointment- so by the time I got there I was very ready to pass out. I burned myself a CD of some soothing trance music last night to listen to during the procedure today in order to help drown out the sounds of drills and other sounds that typically strike fear into the hearts of most who venture into the dentist office.

They had problems connecting my IV, however, and so my arms look like pincushions. Eventually they connected it and before long I was off on my little mental vacation. I kept my earphones playing my trance CD in the entire time- and admittedly it was a huge help. Didn't do much in the way of serving as a guideline for how much time had passed- but just having soothing music injected directly into my brain I'm sure was a major factor why it ended up going so well.

So now I am home, feeling groggier than hell, and beginning to feel some pain- but I've popped some Tylenol Ultra already so I'm hoping to feel a little better in the next half-hour or so. May still end up passing out in bed for a while yet too- but it's kinda hard to motivate yourself to go to bed at 3:00 in the afternoon. But still.

Everyone in the dentist's office was, again, top-notch. They did absolutely everything possible to make sure I was comfortable and to help minimize the anxiety. And now that I'm home, I have Ange to take care of me, along with Dr. Kitten- and I'm sure Nurse Kitten is still helping out somehow too. :)

So now I think it's time to kick back and finally do what I've been desperately needing to do for some time now-... relax.

Like it or not- we're ready for Friday's 'big dance' at the Dentist's office. This morning was extremely difficult to get going and make my 7:00am appointment- especially since I had stayed up late to post a blog entry, deal with some laundry, and even worse, tossed and turned until about 1:30-2:00am thanks to my stomach deciding to revolt on me for something I ate earlier in the day. So after a 'solid' 4-5 hours of actual sleep, I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower to attempt to get going. Amazingly I got to the appointment on time, even a little early- though considering that even now my vision still is having problems focusing, it's remarkable I made it there alive at all!

This morning was part 2 of my Hygiene sessions- and it went pretty well. As usual, everyone at that office is absolutely wonderful and compassionate. Looks like the office made a few upgrades since I was last in back in January- including LCD TVs on a swivel-arm that they can bring right down to the patient. So I was able to catch up on all the latest sports news this morning. :)

Of course that now means the the countdown to Friday is on- and while it still seems so far away now, I'm sure this week will fly by and it will be Friday morning before I know it. Admittedly I am nervous about the procedure. This is my first time being put under for anything so I'm a little unsure of what to expect- though a healthy dose of Valium the morning of should help put that out of my mind. Of course I won't have to worry about enduring the procedure itself since I'll be fast asleep. Probably above all I'm more concerned with the degree of pain I may be in following the procedure. Though if I remember from my last Root Canal that the pain itself was nothing special- it was the strep throat that I had shortly after the procedure that caused me more grief than anything else back then- and I'm certainly not looking for a repeat performance of that experience this time around.
In a way, I'm almost looking forward to being able to come home afterwards and lie in bed and catch up on some much-needed rest and lie around and literally do nothing for most of the weekend. I'm certainly going to treat next weekend as an induced vacation in a sense- I might not even bother trying to work on any programming and literally force myself to do nothing but play games and sleep as much as possible.

Until Friday...

... for now anyways. Late yesterday evening the weather began to shift in Calgary and things began to get significantly warmer. In fact, around 10:00pm last night I went outside only to hear the sweet sound of melting snow all around me. Oh how wonderful it was.

Grey skys are gonna clear up...

This morning was truly a joy. No more snow to brush off the car- no more frost and ice to scrape off the windshield- I didn't have to wear my jacket hood- and when I grabbed the steering wheel... I actually felt it! There is still plenty of snow on the ground, and I'm sure it will take some time before it's all gone- and really, I don't mind the snow if it's not accompanied by cold. I don't mind brushing off my car in the morning so long as my fingers aren't frozen before I get half-way done the windshield. So the snow can stay IMO- in fact, if it snows again in the next week but stays relatively warm, then I'm just fine with that.

Unfortunately one of the side-effects to such a drastic change in weather, especially at the altitude that Calgary is at, is that it really tends to play havoc with your health- most notably your head and sinuses. Already today I've had Ange, Kris and my brother complain about monster headaches or extreme lightheadedness- to the point where standing up from your desk feels like you're going to pass out if you do. I tend to preemptively feel the effects of an ensuing climate change a few days in advance- and I've been dealing with the same symptoms that I've been complaining about for some time now- lightheadedness, random aches and pains (especially in my legs), and pressure in my sinuses -since the weekend. Today I'm not too bad- I think that because I feel the effects several days ahead of time that it tends to spread the intensity of the change out over that time as opposed to getting it all in one massive dose like everyone else seems to be feeling today.

But as we become used to the change in pressure, things will stabilize and these symptoms will pass- unless of course the climate changes for the worse again. Hopefully this is the end of the worst of winter for this year. That may be wishful thinking since there is still March and April to get through- but so long as we don't dip back down to daytime highs of -15'C, I think I can live with that.

(When it all began)