72 Hours of Rest Only Sounds Good Until You Try It

I have been struggling with neck pain since early August. At first, my doctor thought it was muscular, but when traditional treatments and medications didn't touch it and some numbness started to appear, the nightmare began.

Of course, it all starts with a traditional x-ray. At least that one is easily scheduled, right? And the reason it is so easy to schedule an x-ray is that it pretty much tells the doctor nothing in a case like this which is why we started with the whole "ice it" therapy that progressed to "flexeril" that progressed to "maybe you'd better see a neurologist for a nerve conduction study.

For those of you unfamiliar with nerve conduction studies, they suck. Oh, sure, it starts out harmless enough with a few little shocks to your lower arm and hand that make your fingers jump, but just when you start to think it's cake, the real doctor comes in with the needles. Yeah. Needles. And he sticks them in and shocks you. This part is NOT fun. At all. By the time he was finished poking me in the neck I was ready to punch him in the groin... I figured that was fair... but he stopped me with his big reflex hammer to my knees and I thought maybe I should wait until he was unarmed. Anyway, that lovely test revealed that there was some vague issue with the nerves from my cervical spine but to find out what would require another test. He gave me a prescription for some nerve pain pills and shooed me away.

Each successive test took longer to schedule than the last. Oh, and the next test was an MRI. And I'm claustrophobic. The 5mg of Valium didn't really help me all that much as the crabby tech slid me into the tight tube with a paper towel over my eyes. She threatened to make me come back another day, but there was no way I was going to go through it again so I pushed back and she grudgingly continued, admitting that she "probably" got enough for the doctor to see. Which required another trip to the neurologist.

By now I'm stressed and annoyed. My doctor has given me Valium to get through until I get some results. And the neurologist, when I finally see him, says that there is some compression on at least one of the nerves extending from the cervical spine. Of course, he couldn't do anything more for me. I'd have to see a neurosurgeon. At this point, the pain was pretty bad and I just wanted to get things over with. It took nearly a month to get in with the neurosurgeon.

The surgeon flipped through the MRI images, whacked me with his hammer, and declared.... that I needed another test. According to him, a myelogram would show him exactly what was going on. I would have it and within a week we would have a plan. I was thrilled that things were moving! It was, by then, mid October and I was exhausted from the emotional and physical pain. His office called on a Friday afternoon. The mylogram would be in... a month. *sigh* I asked about pain management. A week I had figured I could ride out, a month? No way. They told me I had to call the neurologist because he had initially prescribed. His office was closed on Friday afternoons.

After a weekend of discomfort, I called that neurologist early Monday morning and waited all day for a reply. At 7pm he called me back to tell me that I was no longer his patient and the surgeon would have to prescribe. I instantly regretted not punching him in the groin when I had a chance. Luckily, Tuesday morning, I called the surgeon's office and they immediately set me up with narcotics. I could have kissed him on the lips.

I saw my general doctor in the interim and she upped the nerve pain meds and told me to call her next time. She would be happy to help me out. I really wished I had called her sooner. Anyway, I just had the myelogram, which consisted of some interesting meds that made me not care what they did to me, injection of dye into my cervical spine (not fun even on drugs), and x-rays followed by CT scans. The worst part of all of this, aside from the anticipation, was the pain and headache afterwards... and the 72 hours of taking it easy.

72 hours of laying on the couch with a book and magazines and the TV remote sounds like heaven. Until you HAVE to do it. Until you've watched 1.5 seasons of edited episodes of Weeds, the entire current season of Desperate Housewives, and caught yourself nearly watching a LifeTime movie. And that was all in the first 2 days.

Oh, as for the next step? I have to wait another MONTH to see the neurosurgeon for the results of the myelogram. At least I have narcotics.