Day 409: February 16, 2018 Location: Washington, DC
It’s been a few months since I last let the world into my life via this blog. Back in November of 2017, I promised to never let my writing get away from me again. I didn’t hold myself accountable and for that I apologize to all of you and to me.
Since my last post, I’ve been working through change on many fronts. Adjectives that best describe the varying changes I’ve been making include challenging, exciting, frightening, hopeful, and stressful. The adjectives often turn into human emotions and being that as it may, I quite simply haven’t found the time or the words to write with the degree of openness and passion in my prose. That’s beginning to change now as I’m settling into some of the elements of change.
To break it down for you in bullet points, the main elements of change I’ve faced in recent months is as follows:
• Career – job hunting
• Home – moved out of my in-law’s home and back into our condo
• More health insurance drama - ugh
• Cut off from my disability insurance coverage – more ugh
• Additional Diagnosis and Pain (lower back)– related to the trauma caused by CRPS, but not spreading of CRPS
• Physical
o Given a full release by my physiatrist, Dr. Robert Mayer at Johns Hopkins
o Graduated from occupational therapy and onto physical therapy (doing PT for CRPS issues and my lower back)
o My first major CRPS flare post SCS implantation.
I didn’t include the holidays. While I love the holiday season, we spent an abundant amount of time with our great big family.
As my therapist, Dr. Paula Mintzies, tells me, “you’re out on the ocean in the middle of a tsunami and you need to find dry land to ride out the storm.” Her metaphorical description of my last few months certainly comes with a degree of negativity. Maybe that is just the way I paint it to her in our conversations. It could also represent the shear volume of change in my life at one single time.
With great pride, I can say I’m weathering the storm much better than I was around the turn of the year. While I’ve yet to find solid ground to plant career roots, we have settled into our new home and I am making progress with my physical therapy efforts.
Jason, you told us you were ready to open up again after needing to close off. When are you going to give us some details of each bullet point? Ok, here goes it.
Out of respect for the career search process and companies involved, the career pursuit side of things should remain private between the companies and me (and my wife of course). I’ll let you know I’ve met some really great people during this process and have interviewed with plenty of strong companies. There is a particular fit I’m looking for – a company that is willing to more strongly invest in my expertise today versus an all upside offer, a collaborative and supportive culture, upside growth to keep me on track for long term goals, and flexibility to ensure I take care of my health. That last point is the element of fear that may have been holding me back from making a choice already. I’m following my gut and aiming high because after all, I deserve it. After everything I’ve been through in the last year, why settle for anything less? This would be entirely true if it weren’t for the need to have income. Regardless, there should be good news soon.
Moving sucks. Or does it? The latest home move my wife and I made has mostly gone very well…at least in terms of packing and unpacking. We did it with only one argument despite the fact that my wife had to do the heavy lifting as I have a weight cap for which I’m not able to exceed without risking of major setback or injury. All things considered, I think it’s pretty damn awesome that we didn’t bicker about the physical move more than that one time. I don’t know of any couples that get through the physical aspects of the move without arguing. I’m sure one such couple exists; the couple is not us or any other couple we know. I actually hope someone calls me an ass for my assumption though I don’t know if I’ll believe you. The planning elements proved to be more difficult. Without a job, it is tough to hire painters, movers, etc. It’s also tough to swap out furniture, hang TVs, etc. This is where the real stress of the move came into play. It’s been tedious and time consuming with some angst for the overall situation and budgets. While our condo is tight for two of us, it is in a terrific location and will give us solid ground we need to keep rebuilding our lives with an eye on the future. Until I find the right company, my focus can turn back to improving my health.
It’s apparently very easy to destroy your lower back by lying in bed for most of a year. Yeah, CRPS is a beast, a real SOB, though it never did a medical professional use the term “obliterate” around me until we figured out what was up with my back. Who in the hell “obliterates” their L4, L5, and S1 vertebrae causing one herniated disc and one ruptured disc all by lying in bed? I’ll tell you who, me. Prior to reading the MRI report, I never thought “obliterate” was a medical term. When I think of the word obliterate, I often think of something getting blown up. You know, like a scene in a movie or TV with bombs going off. So a bomb went off in my back while lying in bed for many months? If anyone else has “obliterated” a body part, please let me know.
"OBLITERATED"
Describing the overall physical me over the last few months would probably have more ups and downs than ski resorts (I’ve been watching the Winter Olympics too much dreaming of skiing again some day). I reached two milestone peaks while also frequently having to stop. The major milestones I achieved are: full clearance to return to work (came from Dr. Mayer on 12/22/17) and graduation from occupational therapy to physical therapy (12/8/17). Both MUST be CELEBRATED!!!!! Raining on my own parade a bit, I essentially get 3-4 days of feeling pretty good and then have to take it easy for a few days. Paula says I’m not doing a great job of pacing. Pacing is challenging. How does one pace when you need to find a way to best resume your career, move homes, and work towards positive gain in rehabilitation efforts at physical therapy. My back pain is nowhere near as severe CRPS though prior to 4 corticosteroid injections and PT exercises, it became pretty damn debilitating. The PT exercises to improve one’s core seem mostly fundamental and basic though they’re highly beneficial. In a future post, I’ll demo some of them to the best of my ability.
The most positive yet frightening aspect of my health has been this CRPS flare. It’s only my second post SCS implantation and definitely the biggest I’ve felt following surgery. I’m impressed with how well my Medtronic SCS has performed at handling this CRPS flare. At the same time, I’m in awe of how brutal CRPS can truly be and how anyone could get through this disease untreated. I have refused to beat myself up about it though I caused this flare. I’ve been pushing too hard at PT. I went to finish my set of wall pushups despite feeling intense pain in my left wrist while trying to go from 15 to 20. I figured I have the SCS, I’ll be able to handle any muscle and joint pain in the days that follow. Partially right, but mostly wrong. I’ve had so much pain that I’ve had to cut back activity. I couldn’t drive again for about 10 days because my left wrist hurt so much I couldn’t turn the wheel without wincing in pain or having to set my SCS at a very powerful therapy mode. My left wrist and hand have become somewhat swollen again so I've been using RICE (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) to help reduce the swelling. Annoying, yes. Crippling, hell no and far from it. I’m still going through it and I remain confident the pain, swelling, stiffness, and discomfort will soon subside.
You’re pretty much caught up. I still must get to several the medical heavy and emotional posts from this past year to get up. To that end, the next three blog posts will be a series that covers February 13, 2017 through February 23, 2017. I intend to then continue balancing some of the current news with some of the past events. Remember, the tortoise beats the hare and that is what I’ll do with CRPS, do the best I can one day at a time.
Beat CRPS!
Jason