It's been an action-filled couple of weeks, and I have fallen behind.
On Saturday the 16th, Ian and I were scheduled to go to a birthday party. In fact, I was planning my post for that in my head as we were preparing to leave. The party was in Powhatan, which is about a 45 minute drive for us. It promised to be worth the drive, though, since it was a POOL party. Ian was getting excited about seeing his friend, Neil, and going swimming. And then.....
MY BACK! OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!
A little "back"ground, ha ha.
I've been having these back pains off and on since January, and had been to my primary care doctor. He sent me to a urologist to be checked out for kidney stones. Nothing there. They told me to take advil and use a heating pad and I had been doing that with some success. But some days were better than others, and this was turning into a very bad day......
So, I called Neil's mom and said we would have to miss the party. I took the advil, grabbed the heating pad, and crawled into bed. I was getting no relief. Then I needed to get up and, well, I couldn't. I called for Rob, and he helped me but it was unbelievably painful. I went to the bathroom then got back in bed. The next time I had to get up, I almost passed out and then I decided I had to get to the ER. I didn't know WHAT THE HELL IT WAS! And, to be honest, I was very, very scared.
So, when Ashby got home, Rob put me in the car and drove me to Henrico Doctor's Hospital. To emphasize how out of it I was, I didn't even put on my seat belt. I think I was secretly hoping we'd be in an accident and I'd be put out of my misery. And, I always, always wear my seat belt.
Yeah, I know this sounds dramatic, but it was AWFUL.
So, we get into the ER and this is kind of where my thoughts turned to Ian. Not that I was worried about him being home with Ashby. (In fact, he had a grand time bossing his big brother around and watching all the movies I can't stand like Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar). I was thinking, what if this was Ian who was in this kind of pain? He wouldn't be able to say where it hurt, how long it had been hurting. He wouldn't be able to stand all the machines, the noises, the NEEDLES. With everything I had to do, I kept thinking of this. An IV for morhpine? Me, bring it on! Ian? Forget about it!
Then, the CT scan. OMG. I about freaked out because laying flat on my back was hideous and I got so cold I pretty much cried like a baby. What if Ian had to go through that?
So, I'm starting to think about this on a grander scale. There is a growing part of our population with special needs that will be needing medical care as they age. Are our hospitals going to be ready? Will there be training for the staff? Because, 10 to 1, I'm not going to be around when Ian starts to need the kind of services I needed on that Saturday night. Will Medicaid cover what he needs? Who will be with him?
To end my little saga, I'm okay. Everything came back fine except my potassium level. They pumped that up with some pills and gave me some pain meds and sent me home. I did a day of bed rest on Sunday and started to feel human on Monday. I am continuing to see my doctor and it appears this is probably arthritis as well as back spasms. Nothing definite yet, but we're working on some answers.
In the meantime, though, I am going to do what I can to keep my child as healthy as possible for as long as possible and pray that someone with more foresight than me is working on some of these issues.
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