This Happened

[Iantha]

She doesn't normally sit with me like this anymore because I usually take a brush to her and she hates that.

Keeping my fingers warm.

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[Phoebe]

AAAAAaaaaaAaAaAAAaaa the cuteness level!!!!!!!

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

Sky phallus. That is all.

[Tahlvin]

[Walrus]

[Phoebe]

As my kid wisely observes, it's hard to go from super quiet, calm, to super loud, manic, all of a sudden.

[Walrus]

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

That is kind of amusing though it is annoying! Maybe it is a sign. Maybe Japan is where you're supposed to be...

For some reason I decided to go ahead and make another appointment with the OCD guy. He's the only person (here) worth seeing about it. I have not seen him in 1,684 days. That last visit was a doozy I guess. It certainly accomplished some Life Changes, though whether for better or worse it is sometimes hard to say. I mention it because there's no shame in having something like OCD and then doing something about it. The OCD brain is actually pretty helpful when it comes to some tasks in life. The other reason I mention it is that I've been doing better with it lately than probably ever before, but because I know I'm under a huge amount of stress at work and home and so forth, I'm making the appointment proactively to deal with stress before my brain finds some other way of dealing with it. This seems like a good idea. On the other hand, knowing how effective the last visit was, even though effectiveness is ultimately good for you, in this case "good" often feels quite the opposite! So I'm slightly intimidated to go in there.

The procedure is basically like, what do you think you're doing to cope with anxiety? And then through some questioning, it turns out that other things are in fact truly being done to cope with anxiety that weren't mentioned on the first go-round. Then some helpful suggestions are made about what one will have to do to get rid of these things. This is where the discomfort level starts to go up dramatically. If one has a very successful way of seeking happiness, or coping with one's anxieties and unhappiness, even if that way is ultimately bad for you in the long run of life, it can be very hard to give it up. But it is something that must be done. It's not like he could give you a formula and then it magically happens; one has to go through the painful work of doing the things he recommends and that you know are the right course. Sometimes it's things like touching the toilet seat or not touching a doorknob, and other times it's a little more revolutionary for living. Thus the anticipatory fear a week ahead of time... He does give you hypnosis tools to assist in the process - hypnosis is like the thing that makes your mind stronger so that it can cast away its various crutches. Still, I know what happened last time was a major, earth-shattering kaboom, so I wonder if I can get through this one without another earth-shattering kaboom...

[Iantha]

I start a new job on Monday!

[Phoebe]

Yay, congratulations! Hopefully it leads to much happier living!

[Zen]

So... I had an "interesting" experience with my spinal injection this time. (Not frightening like the time when the doctor went to far in with the needle and hit the nerve, sending blinding, searing pain down my right leg for a moment.) This time, instead of aiming the injection toward either the right or left, it was being aimed directly to the center. The previous injection was aimed left because the left side was bothering me more, despite the fact that, technically, the damage is worse on the right. (The left is "newer". I'm used to the right...)

When I met with the nurse practitioner to schedule the 2nd injection, she asked if I'd had any relief from the first injection and I told her that it was hard to say. There was a point at which I thought it might have had an effect, because I was having more pain on the right. But the next day, the pain was back on the left. It seems to switch where it's worse at this point, probably based on environmental factors. (Like how I slept, etc...) So we decided to do center.

Well, because the injection was going further from both pinched nerves, the doctor did something different. After the steroid injection, he added an additional shot of local anesthetic to "help spread" the steroid injection to both sides. He warned me that it would cause my legs to be numb for about an hour... yeah... an hour... double that... and not JUST my legs! EVERYTHING below my waist! I've never had numb butt cheeks before... it was... really weird! And not particularly comfortable... pins and needles like... and hard to walk... and kind of creepy...

[Phoebe]

Oooh, that IS weird! Despite having had three "awake" surgeries that involved a spinal block, I've never really experienced that because I was flat on my back and not getting up until it was fully worn off. No weird tinglings. My relatives have done some spinal injections like this - not steroids, but something else (a gel??) that helps expand the space for the nerves to exist within. Is that what they're doing to you, or is it injections like you would have for knee/hip pain? I find all of this fascinating - this is going to be old age. Can you imagine if some group like this is still chugging along a few decades hence? The threads about bodily ailments are going to be epic. I think my fascination with other people's ailments is some product of aging. It's like, we need info about all the hell we are rolling the dice to potentially experience...

[Phoebe]

It turns out that the reason we thought our dog was so gentle and pleasant around other dogs is that none of them ever challenged him for the alpha ranking before.

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

I wish I could tell you in an expert way about the spinal injections that aren't steroids but that create some kind of spacing around the nerves that are pinched. They're injecting some type of gel or other thing that creates a space and it lasts for quite some time. One of the goals here, which I had doubts about but it appears to be successful, is reducing unnecessary surgery for people who are in a position like yours. Something has to be done to relieve the nerve pressure, and if they can do it without surgery, great! I don't know if you're seeing an orthopedic spinal specialist already, but I would think this is one of the options in their toolkit?

[Zen]

[Phoebe]

I have reached a critical mass in the category, "important things that I can't talk about at all but that are freaking me out and related to which I'm certain I have stepped in a big pile of it, or am about to".

I feel like someone has strapped me into a roller coaster, and we are just riding and riding and riding, way more riding than I thought there was going to be on this coaster.

[Tahlvin]

My wife and teenage daughter (a senior in HS) are currently flying to NYC. They'll be spending tonight in a hotel a block away from Times Square, then attending a Broadway musical tomorrow (Dear Evan Hansen), spending tomorrow night at a hotel near the airport, then flying back home on Thursday. And this is the first time we've ever removed one of our kids from school for completely personal reasons, rather than being sick or attending a funeral.