Yes, my valentine’s was lovely, how was yours? My sweetie knows how to make me happy 🙂
You may remember in an older post of mine that I was quite concerned regarding one of the main forms of treatment available to me. My previous nephrologist suggested that getting the nerve-blocking injections I periodically subject myself to would lead to eventual scarring around said nerves… rendering them, over time, incapable or receiving any benefit from pain medication at all, and leaving me far worse off than I was before.
This quite stalled me. The injection procedure is far from fun, but I put myself through it because it’s one of the few things that has been able to give me any lasting kind of quality of life back. And if that option is now no longer safe… I have no idea what to do.
Luckily I saw this nephrologist shortly before moving and switching over to a whole new group of doctors, including a new pain specialist, who, by the way, I utterly adore. The first thing I asked her was if the nephrologist had been right; that my injections would lead to permanent scarring of the nerves. While she couldn’t absolutely promise it wouldn’t happen, she assured me that there was about a 99% chance it would not happen, with the kind I get, at the frequency I get them and the needles used.
Whew. One huge worry off my mind.
That led us into discussing scheduling another round of injections, which I felt it was time for, and she agreed. A letter asking for approval was sent to my insurance company while I waited, glad to both have the option to have more injections and also secretly glad that I didn’t have to have them just yet while insurance dragged it’s feet.
And then today I got my approval, so I called the surgery center to make my appointment… and they could get me in as early as next week. In the past I’ve always had to wait at least a month to get in for these; I’m not at all mentally prepared for next week, let alone I already have my work schedule for then. I had them push it back a bit, but it’s still looming up at me from March 2nd.
Gulp. I’ve complained enough about the recovery from the injections in real life and my old blog, and I very likely will again after this set, so I won’t go into it all again now. But it is not fun. And while I know it’s going to be really good for me in the long run, I also know that the first few days after are going to be awful, and the whole month after is going to be some degree of fucked up. It’s hard to steel myself for, and I think it gets a little harder each time.
I will go, and it will be good for me, and I’ll be glad I went through it. But it’s hard.
I will have to make sure I take lots and lots of photos so I have tons to edit during the days I’m bedridden. At least that will give me something useful to do 🙂
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