random thoughts – Day 2,051 (Tuesday) – x-ray vision

The morning was rough with the right shoulder feeling like it had been through a battle while I slept. Thank goodness for a gel ice pack wrapped in a towel and shoved under the shoulder of my bathrobe. Later thanks go to heating pads. Eternal thanks go to swearing, which releases stress momentarily, if nothing else. 

After the first round of icing the shoulder area pain was relieved and it was back to the tingling arm, hand, and fingers, which were all extra spicy today. The right index finger had bonus content with pain and feeling swollen.

After a coffee visit with Mom it was back to my house. The handyman was scheduled to return to install the ceiling fan and light in the main bathroom and the new downspout on the carport. We started drafting the cold weather work list of non-urgent tasks that first require me shopping for a dining room light and a medicine cabinet.

Around noon, the handyman left and there was the first food of the day (leftover Chinese food, continued). A call was made to the backup hospital radiology department in another city to confirm they had received the x-ray order from the spine and pain center that was supposed to be sent yesterday. They had not received it and based on the past several weeks I was not the tiniest bit surprised. Before I sent a portal note to the spine center team about the referral, I called the local hospital radiology department to see if they were taking walk-in x-rays yet. The person on the phone said they were taking x-rays as long as there was an “order in hand.” My order was in their computer and I was assured this was good.

I grabbed a jacket and was out the door and on the road within five minutes of ending the second call. At the hospital, I followed the signs through the maze of a building to patient registration as I had been instructed on the phone. The person behind the glass told me (very politely) that non-emergency x-rays were still not being taken and I relayed the info received from the phone call of less than 20 minutes earlier.

The receptionist expressed dismay with colleagues who have been providing incorrect info, then checked in with someone in an office down the hall. She returned with a small stack of paperwork and took me to an office where she told the occupant to make sure my papers were marked with “approved.” After a few signatures on a digital pad I was told to report to the CT scan department.

Ice pack and TV,
evening edition.

It was a short wait before I was brought into a room for three neck x-ray views. There seemed to be an expert teaching a trainee and I got to hear the physical placement and alignment of  three views and an explanation of what else would have been done if my visit had been the result of an auto accident. Then I was on my way back home, where supper was (drum roll) … Chinese food (the final chapter). Tomorrow, it will be back to the life of having to think about what to eat again. 

Also tomorrow, hopefully there will be news from the spine and pain center with some steps for pain relief. I would like to be done with things hurting and tingling and not being able to get comfortable and feeling perpetually bitchy because things hurt. It’s exhausting. There are things to be done besides sitting with ice packs and heating pads and I’d like to be doing some of them.