Sore Back? This will scare you!!

Hi there! I've been busy lately. My poor little blog has suffered terribly and I am so sorry to have neglected it for so long.

I made the mistake of volunteering my skills (or lack thereof) to a web site used by the group dedicated to Adhesive Arachnoiditis - which is what Dub suffers from. This back condition is almost always caused by an invasive procedure by doctors. I guess the easiest way to describe it is to say that when the outer covering of the spine is damaged, this produces scar tissue. In some cases that scar tissue becomes very sticky and huge, it invades the spinal column and causes nerve "clumping".

Once the scar tissue starts growing and sticking to the nerves, the patient has tremendous, unending pain. It goes all day and all night. You have bad days and then you have worse days. The nerve pain is accompanied by a burning sensation in your feet - or for some people it feels like they are walking on broken glass. Very frequently one or both legs develop numbness. Sometimes just the thigh, sometimes the entire leg.

There are a lot of other problems associated with Adhesive Arachnoiditis. We have about 2,500 that belong to the on-line group. It seems like every one of them has different problems. Some can function pretty well, like Dub. Some are bed-ridden. Some are in wheel chairs.

Diagnosis is tough. It usually takes an MRI with contrast dye and an expert radiologist to spot it. Most doctors will first tell you that it's all in your head. Your surgery was a success and everything is fine. Your x-ray looks great. Once you have that "AA" diagnosis, Social Security Disability is pretty easy to get. It's one of the major disabilities on their "list".

For pain relief I've heard of everything from acupuncture to implanted morphine pumps and everything in between. I know of people who do well on very mild prescription pain killers and there are a lot who never get any relief even from their morphine pumps. Dub is one of the lucky ones who get pretty good relief on a minimum of prescriptions.

This can't be operated on. If you have surgery and they remove the scar tissue, it grows back - bigger and badder! There is no cure. There is no fix. We have a young man in our on-line group who is 21 years old. His mother joined when he was only 7! We've all kind of 'watched' Little Andrew grow up with this affliction. For almost 14 years his mom has been looking for a way to fix it!

We actually have two sites. One for information - where we try to keep up with all the latest research. The other is just about all posting back and forth about what works for each . . . and what doesn't.

Ladies - - this is for YOU! Birthing epidurals are a major cause of this problem among women. If that needle is off just a tiny fraction, you, too could end up with this! Discuss it with your doctor before having that epidural.

Dub and I had never heard of this until a year after his one and only back surgery. We got out all those release/consent papers that were signed and looked them over very carefully. Yes, it's in there! We are told by the "experts" that there's only about a 5% chance of having this happen.

So, please be aware. If you are having any procedures done that involve your neck, back, spine or anything close to any of those - ask your doctor about Adhesive Arachnoiditis. It will at least put him/her on notice that you know it exists. An old British study showed the 87% of cases were caused by physician errors!

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And for more of a downer . . . Stellan is back in the hospital. According to the last tweet from McKMama he is not responding well at all. The SVT is not going away and he is in rough shape. . . . GET THOSE PRAYERS GOING ! !

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

In hindsight, I have just realized that I did NOT put my life in danger this morning. When taking the rat terriers out with me to get the morning paper, I failed to notice the HUGE pit bull wandering up our street. As Rascal (fur standing straight up, barking like mad) headed toward the pit bull, I did not rush in their direction with only the Monday edition of Florida Today for protection! Just as the dogs were nose-to-nose (with NO tail wagging), the pit bull owner drove around the corner, jumped from his car and grabbed his collar. Whew, I was afraid Rascal was gonna hurt that poor pit bull!

I have NOT hit a total case of "writers' block" and will now close this pitiful attempt of blogging for today! I DO hope that my next attempt will be at least a little more entertaining.

What's So Special About Tomorrow??

AT 5 MINUTES AND 6 SECONDS AFTER 4 O'CLOCK, ON THE 8TH OF JULY, THIS YEAR, THE TIME AND DATE WILL BE:

04:05:06 07-08-09!!

It will happen once in the morning . . . and once in the afternoon.

THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN UNTIL THE YEAR 3009!!!

(I had a feeling that you just needed to know this - didn't want you to wait 1000 years for someone else to tell you about it.)

And, I must also add that it is the birthday of one of my very favorite people EVER! Happy Birthday, Karen! You're the best daughter I could have ever picked!

Not Me! Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I did not wish horrible, terrible, awful things to happen to one of my across the street neighbors this weekend. Never did. Never would. He did NOT park a full tractor-trailer across the street from our house on Friday evening and leave it there until 3 o'clock this morning! About every 30 minutes, the generator did NOT kick on to run the reefer and keep his load cold.

Therefore, while trying to enjoy cooking ribs on the grill we WEREN'T surrounded by the wonder odor of diesel exhaust! And while trying to enjoy splashing in the pool we were not choking on the same diesel exhaust fumes!

And we didn't have to finally move inside to enjoy our watermelon! How can you have a watermelon seed spitting contest inside??!!

It is NOT 11am. I am NOT still in my jammies. I am NOT sitting in the nice, cool A/C while Dub is outside mowing the lawn! And I do NOT intend to change any of those items any time soon . . . . well, okay - I AM going to go shower and get dressed.

Happy Monday!!

Not Me! Monday - Free Therapy

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Nobody in this house spent two full days in her jammies this week. Nope, not sick. Nothing wrong. Just absolute pure-tee laziness! There is no one in this house that would do that!

And then that very same nobody could never have gone outside early this morning and pulled weeds, dug dirt, picked about a ton of tomatos and egg plants, chased two rat terriers, filled the bird bath, trimmed the fig bush and then came in the house to figure out that she couldn't have possibly forgotten all about writing her Not me! Monday post!! No respectable blogger could or would ever do that!

Dub did NOT decide that the blades on our cute little green and yellow riding mower needed sharpening. And he sure didn't proceed to lift said little mower by himself so he could get a jack stand under it. For those of you unaware - he has a horrible, inoperable back condition that is aggravated by doing things like that - and here he is doing heavy lifting. Like his doctors have NOT limited him to picking up nothing weighing more than 8 pounds! Oh no - nothing like that ever happens around here.

And, of course, I did not throw a complete - perfect hissy fit in his direction for this crime. We don't have every tool known to man around here. We have two floor jacks! And he really didn't stick his head in the door and ask if I could help him for a minute! NO!

Then Dub didn't spend the next day in bed with his pain medication wondering why his back was killing him! Please tell me that he didn't actually say, "I don't know what the hell I did, but I'm hurtin' so much worse than usual!"

If you haven't done any "Not Me's" - how about leaving a couple in my comments! I just love knowing I'm not alone in my imperfections!

Someone Help Me!

If you read my Not Me! Monday!, you know that I've been having some issues with sleeping in lately.

What I failed to mention is that on that very Monday - my brother-in-law was BEATING (not knocking) on our front door at 7:15am. Yes, a damn m!

This man has no conscience. He is retired, like us - but he is one of those who gets up really early every morning! And he doesn't understand why the rest of the world isn't up and fully functioning before 7 every morning!

There is no way to count the number of times I have told him not to call so early in the morning . . . I have told him not to come beating on the door so early in the morning. He just laughs and says it doesn't hurt us to get up early and be productive from time to time.

I agree with him completely . . . only if it were "from time to time". He is not bothered by the fact that everyone else that has our number seems to feel exactly the same way.

This morning at 9:00 - - - it was granddaughter G from Middleofnowhere, GA to let us know that she was at the salon. She was using her Mom's cell so she could tell us Mom was getting a hair cut - and that her 5 year old little toes were getting a pedicure! Someone help me!!

Her godfather gave her several gift certificates for salon services for Christmas. Yes, this is the same man who gave her the miniature bull for her birthday! Bear is now about as tall as a great dane but much, much wider!

It's time for my nap now.

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I'm taking a little liberty with my Not Me! Monday! today. I'm going to tell on other people. There is a theme to this. Let's call it "Who woke them up this morning?" Dub and I are retired - we love to sleep in - our family and friends know we love to sleep in. This is how our valiant efforts to sleep in were squashed last week!

Monday - The Yellow Book did NOT have their computer call us at 8:30am to make sure that we received our recent phone book delivery

Tuesday - No way that Dub's son "C" called us at 7:15 am just to say hi! At 7:15 dang am!???

Wednesday - L couldn't wait to call from Middleofnowhere, GA to tell us about the new baby bunnies. Oh, no - had to call at 8:30 and actually say, "Sorry to wake you guys up, but we've got SIX new bunnies!" Happy, happy, joy, joy!

Thursday - Mastercard did not call me at 9am just to see if I was a happy customer. We won't even discuss the fact that I had already told them twice that I wanted to be put on their 'do not call' list -- because I was becoming an unhappy customer -- because they kept calling me!

Friday - Because of a serious case of short term memory loss, Dub's son "C" forgot that he had already done his duty of awaking us EARLY Tuesday! No - I guess this was different - he really didn't call at 7:15am. He called about 8am. No - he couldn't have done that twice in one week!

Saturday - We actually shot ourselves in the foot! Set our alarm for 7am....just had to get up in time to rush out to the front yard and watch the shuttle launch! Got up, turned on the TV for the latest shuttle update - - AND IT DIDN'T LAUNCH!

Sunday - Dixie and Rascal detected a major disturbance in the neighborhood - and couldn't have started a bark-fest about 7:45am. Oh, no - they didn't fight to see who was gonna get out the door first . . . and as soon as they were both outside, they looked around - did what needed to be done and came back inside. They both immediately stretch out and went back to sleep. Dub and I however NEVER got back to sleep!

And how was your week??