Getting Impatient

"You Are Here".  Remember those on maps? Steve and I have been all over the place lately, so it's time to sum it all up-to-the-moment. The "Here" for both of us is impatience.

Steve first:  The dominant influence on his life since November has been his back. He's tried painkillers, muscle relaxers, CBD, chiropractic manipulation, even spinal ablation to try to ease his pain. It's meant he's had to give up all those places he went with his scooter because any pebble under a wheel is a sharp jolt of agony. Those include his card clubs, heading to the shopping center which has his grocery store, his favorite Mexican restaurant, his barber, his bank, his pharmacy. To get to the grocery, his doctors, everything but his clubs, I drive him since his pain meds prohibit him from driving. I'd take him to the clubs too, but he needs that scooter once he's there, and it's too difficult to dismantle for transport in the car. His one outing that wasn't a basic necessity was the recent funeral of a long-time friend.

Needless to say, it's been quite discouraging. He's been trying everything he can while also not becoming a drug addict. Relief is minimal, brief, or even countered by supposed fixes. Recently he had to readjust his pain scale - the one from 1 to 10 - to put what was a 9 down to a 5 or 6 so he could add more levels on the top end. We are both trying not to be totally discouraged. And yes, emphasize the "courage" in the middle of that word. It's bad enough having to watch that  kind of pain. I can only imagine having to live it and still not lash out at everything and everybody around you. He doesn't do that.

There is still a ray of hope. A cousin of his has had intractable back pain, until she was pointed to a kind of pain interrupter that functions by having little electrodes inserted surgically along the spine, along with a battery giving off a current which interrupts the pain signals trying to reach the brain. Steve has an appointment to see a doctor who can do that. Of course, no appointments were available for the initial consult until next week. (Maybe if the Doc needed this procedure himself he'd find a way to be more available?) So: IMPATIENT!!!

Me next:  After a long journey to get all my meds to do what they could, I now have great blood pressure, no toxicity, and a heart whose ventricles forgot the speedy rhythm this body learned in junior high marching band. The cardiac ablation surgery went well, so far as can be determined. A-fib for me when unmedicated was very intermittent at its worst, and while it hasn't recurred since surgery, I'm not ready to rule it out forever. It's not on my worry list.

However, the progressive bradycardia has definitely been living up to its name. Yesterday was the first day in over a week where I didn't have anything from a single episode to hours of repeated episodes of it. At worst it could happen when I was sprawled back in my recliner, thinking I was about to faint. Steve was ready to call 911 and I was almost ready to let him. It could be something as simple as standing at the bathroom sink for a couple minutes and needing to reach for a chair. Luckily, most bathrooms provide one of those! Lest I think yesterday meant good news, today is already disabusing me of that idea.

Friday I called my cardiologist's office. Earlier in the week I'd found out from staff (while getting a blood test) that he has a partner who can implant pacemakers, so I thought I'd try to get an appointment set up as quickly as possible to get that rolling. Like I said: magic word is "progressive". I received a surprising answer. While my regular guy doesn't do the procedure, I'd be stepping on his toes if I switched, even temporarily, to his partner who can. Worse, my guy was on vacation and wouldn't be back till today, so the staff couldn't ask "permission" until then/now. Which they haven't yet.

Really? I mean, seriously? #RU4REAL?

So yeah, impatient!

Oh, and to those of you for whom it's relevant, we're not traveling north until after both issues are resolved and travel is ... well, permitted. And that also involves juggling surgery schedules so one of us is capable of doing necessary things while the other can't, of which driving is only the most obvious.

Stay tuned.