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that was the month that was
Jan. 6th, 2022 02:45 pmHello, everybody. I had quite a December.
It all started when I got my Moderna booster on November 29. It hit me pretty hard and I spent the next few days mostly in bed. On an air mattress, which doesn't provide very good back support AT ALL.
Once I was up and about again, I had a backache. No big, they happen sometimes, although this one didn't seem to want to go away. And I was occasionally getting mild sciatica-like pain down my left leg.
Fast forward to December 13. I was doing a little cleaning, carefully because my back still hurt. And something went very, very wrong. The sciatica pain got very bad and did not let up, in fact got worse over the next day or so. I couldn't stand or sit for more than a few seconds without unbearable pain.
Called out sick from work. Called my doctor's office, spoke to the triage nurse and got (delivered to me) a prescription for extra-strength ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant. These did . . . a little, so that at least if I lay very still on my right side with my left leg carefully positioned over my right one, the pain was reduced enough that I could sleep for an hour or two at a stretch. Also, the muscle relaxant had the fun side effect of making the pain worse for the first hour or so, along with leg tremors.
Tried to contact my doctor's office again. Left messages, no response. (It's a big clinic and there's basically a phone screening system where you can never, ever speak to doctor or even their assistant directly unless they call you.) Finally I got through to the triage nurse again--she'd been out having surgery (!) and all my messages had gone astray.
The triage nurse managed to get me a same day telephone appointment with my provider (I couldn't leave my bed long enough for an in-person appointment and there weren't any available anyway.) At that point I finally got the good meds--prednisone (a steroid) for the inflammation, plus hydrocodone (an opioid painkiller), a different muscle relaxant, and gabapentin (which is mostly an anti-convulsant but also helps with nerve pain like sciatica, since sciatica happens when the sciatic nerve from your spine down to your toes gets trapped and compressed).
I finally started to get a bit better, for a value of better that means "can stand/sit for up to a minute, maybe, and also you'll be shaky and likely to fall over because you are on ALL THE DRUGS and also your muscles have atrophied."
It's only in the last couple of days that I've begun to function at all normally. I am sitting at my computer desk to type this, which would have been unthinkable even four or five days ago. Yesterday I had my first shower in over three weeks!!! (BTW, when I say "in bed" for any time after the sciatica started, I actually mean "on the floor." I deflated the air mattress on the grounds that the floor was probably better.)
I'm partway through a second course of prednisone, an awesome drug that unfortunately fucks up your blood sugar and makes you temporarily immuno-suppressed. And I should be back to work, possibly on light duty, next week.
Yes, I've been off work for a month, which has cost me all the PTO I was saving up for top surgery, and also some of my saved money. (I'm absolutely fine financially, it's just frustrating, because I had plans for that money and that PTO.) I more or less missed Christmas, which I resent. (A lot of those first couple of weeks is now a blur, and I can barely remember Christmas day. I think I ate crackers and yogurt?)
And that's where I've been for the last month. 0/10, do not recommend. I'm genuinely much better now, but I never ever want to have an experience like this ever again. The absolute helplessness of not being able to even stand up.
I'm very grateful to the clinic pharmacy for having free delivery, and above all to one of my work colleagues who very kindly dropped off groceries at my door.
It all started when I got my Moderna booster on November 29. It hit me pretty hard and I spent the next few days mostly in bed. On an air mattress, which doesn't provide very good back support AT ALL.
Once I was up and about again, I had a backache. No big, they happen sometimes, although this one didn't seem to want to go away. And I was occasionally getting mild sciatica-like pain down my left leg.
Fast forward to December 13. I was doing a little cleaning, carefully because my back still hurt. And something went very, very wrong. The sciatica pain got very bad and did not let up, in fact got worse over the next day or so. I couldn't stand or sit for more than a few seconds without unbearable pain.
Called out sick from work. Called my doctor's office, spoke to the triage nurse and got (delivered to me) a prescription for extra-strength ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant. These did . . . a little, so that at least if I lay very still on my right side with my left leg carefully positioned over my right one, the pain was reduced enough that I could sleep for an hour or two at a stretch. Also, the muscle relaxant had the fun side effect of making the pain worse for the first hour or so, along with leg tremors.
Tried to contact my doctor's office again. Left messages, no response. (It's a big clinic and there's basically a phone screening system where you can never, ever speak to doctor or even their assistant directly unless they call you.) Finally I got through to the triage nurse again--she'd been out having surgery (!) and all my messages had gone astray.
The triage nurse managed to get me a same day telephone appointment with my provider (I couldn't leave my bed long enough for an in-person appointment and there weren't any available anyway.) At that point I finally got the good meds--prednisone (a steroid) for the inflammation, plus hydrocodone (an opioid painkiller), a different muscle relaxant, and gabapentin (which is mostly an anti-convulsant but also helps with nerve pain like sciatica, since sciatica happens when the sciatic nerve from your spine down to your toes gets trapped and compressed).
I finally started to get a bit better, for a value of better that means "can stand/sit for up to a minute, maybe, and also you'll be shaky and likely to fall over because you are on ALL THE DRUGS and also your muscles have atrophied."
It's only in the last couple of days that I've begun to function at all normally. I am sitting at my computer desk to type this, which would have been unthinkable even four or five days ago. Yesterday I had my first shower in over three weeks!!! (BTW, when I say "in bed" for any time after the sciatica started, I actually mean "on the floor." I deflated the air mattress on the grounds that the floor was probably better.)
I'm partway through a second course of prednisone, an awesome drug that unfortunately fucks up your blood sugar and makes you temporarily immuno-suppressed. And I should be back to work, possibly on light duty, next week.
Yes, I've been off work for a month, which has cost me all the PTO I was saving up for top surgery, and also some of my saved money. (I'm absolutely fine financially, it's just frustrating, because I had plans for that money and that PTO.) I more or less missed Christmas, which I resent. (A lot of those first couple of weeks is now a blur, and I can barely remember Christmas day. I think I ate crackers and yogurt?)
And that's where I've been for the last month. 0/10, do not recommend. I'm genuinely much better now, but I never ever want to have an experience like this ever again. The absolute helplessness of not being able to even stand up.
I'm very grateful to the clinic pharmacy for having free delivery, and above all to one of my work colleagues who very kindly dropped off groceries at my door.
