As many of you know from following us on Facebook yesterday, we had a little crisis with Andrea having really severe neck pain. She had mentioned to me a day earlier that it was really stiff and she thought she'd "slept on it wrong", but apparently it was something that had been building for awhile unbeknownst to me.
Yesterday, it launched to crisis level when she woke up screaming in pain (literally, she tells me, though I was already gone to work). She said she was glad Daniel had been staying at a cousin's house because she was screaming and crying all morning trying to get dressed, feed the dogs, and get a hold of me. I'd already been at work a few hours by the time she let me know what was going on. I left immediately and got home to her, applied heat, did some light massage to the neck and shoulders, and called her oncologist to get permission to give her some prescription pain reliever we had for Daniel.
Within an hour things were a bit better and we discussed options eventually settling on the ER at Hancock Regional (Greenfield) hospital - mostly because they're so much less crowded. Sure enough, there was no wait at all.
As a friend of mine predicted though, the ER did nothing but treat the symptoms and refer us back to our family doctor (which is another story, perhaps for another time). As they treated her and discussed what they wanted to do, I was repeatedly reminding them about Andrea's chemotherapy medications and how she's extremely limited on what other meds she can take because of interactions with it. Both the doctor and primary nurse were visibly annoyed with me (which is normal by the way), but at least twice, I saw them change what they were doing or planning because they'd forgotten to take that into account even though I'd already told them. Very frustrating, but again - quite normal. This is exactly why I annoy the heck out of them constantly bird-dogging them and insisting they tell me everything they're doing.
After giving her an injection of an anti-inflammatory drug, the doctor prescribed two high-strength pain relievers and a muscle relaxer - again - after my repeated warnings that they needed to closely evaluate interactions with her chemotherapy meds. So as soon as I got Andrea back home, I called the oncologist to run these drugs by them and as I expected, 2 of the 3 prescriptions were rejected. We ended up settling on a different set of meds which we hope will help a lot today - we'll see when she gets up and moving this morning.
I was able to get 6-1/2hrs in at work after all, but didn't get home till nearly 9:30. By then Andrea was doing pretty well though. Unfortunately, we're kind of "between" family doctors right now, so we'll need to decide who to see about getting to a root cause with this. For those who asked about a chiropractor, we almost certainly will not be going that route. After a couple dozen years of combined experience between Andrea & I and a fair amount of my own research, I put very little faith in chiropractors any more. Notice I did not say "no faith". I'm convinced there's still a "baby" in all that "bath water" - and I remain open ... a little ... but the next time I hear the word "subluxation" or am told we'll need a full set of X-rays, I may actually scream! :-)
I know I owe everyone a major update on both Andrea and especially Daniel regarding the cancer and our recent trip to Orlando. I promise, I'll get them out soon.
As always, we're extremely thankful to everyone for the prayers - by far the BEST treatment for any illness!
Grace and Peace to all;
- Tim -
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
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