Changes
Change is a funny thing.
Change is constant. Change is always happening. Change is unavoidable.
But sometimes, you have to make it happen. You have to make changes, in response to changes. For example, the human body goes through changes all your life. You grow, your body changes. You go through puberty, your body changes more. These aren't things we can control. They just happen, whether we are are conscious of it or not. But sometimes things change in ways we don't expect, and we have to consciously make changes to keep things the way we like them, to keep the status quo.
At some point during my life, I injured my back. At first it was diagnosed as a chronic muscle spasm, and I went through weeks of therapy to fix it. Changes to fix changes. And it was fine for a while, didn't hurt so bad, so long as I didn't strain myself.
More recently though, in the past year or two, my back began to bother me again. The pain wasn't the same as before. It didn't feel muscular, it felt more centered on my spine. However, as things seem to inconveniently happen in my life, I didn't have insurance at the time to have it checked out. Inconvenient changes.
Finally, though, I got insurance back, and had an X-Ray and MRI done on my back, as the pain has been nearly constant for the past 6 months. It was discovered that I have a bulging, or herniated, disc at L4 and L5 of the lumbar region of the spine, with evidence of an annular tear. An annular tear, I found out, means that the disc has ruptured. The physical therapist I am seeing described the disc as like a jelly doughnut. Jelly doughnuts have a hole in one side where the jelly is squirted in; in my case, the jelly doughnut is being squeezed too hard and the jelly is leaking out of the hole.
Dammit.
Now I'm hungry.
The neurologist I saw prescribed 4-6 weeks of physical therapy, 2-3 days a week. The insurance company only wants to pay for 7 visits, total. The changes I need to make, or need made, cannot possibly happen in such a limited time, so I wonder now if I should even bother. I know I can keep doing the exercises at home after my visits are over, but I don't know if I will learn enough in a weeks worth of visits to benefit me long-term.
If the physical therapy doesn't work well enough, the neurologist wants me to consider epidural steroids. Basically, that means taking a long needle and injecting steroids between the vertebrae in my back. This scares me. And as I understand it, it is really painful. A friend's mother has to have them and has said that the injections hurt worse than the pain in her back. This also scares me. But I don't know of any other options.
Change can be scary.
Changes to my body, changes recommended by the doctor, changes made by the insurance company, changes in my therapy, changes in the future.
Change sucks.
Change is constant. Change is always happening. Change is unavoidable.
But sometimes, you have to make it happen. You have to make changes, in response to changes. For example, the human body goes through changes all your life. You grow, your body changes. You go through puberty, your body changes more. These aren't things we can control. They just happen, whether we are are conscious of it or not. But sometimes things change in ways we don't expect, and we have to consciously make changes to keep things the way we like them, to keep the status quo.
At some point during my life, I injured my back. At first it was diagnosed as a chronic muscle spasm, and I went through weeks of therapy to fix it. Changes to fix changes. And it was fine for a while, didn't hurt so bad, so long as I didn't strain myself.
More recently though, in the past year or two, my back began to bother me again. The pain wasn't the same as before. It didn't feel muscular, it felt more centered on my spine. However, as things seem to inconveniently happen in my life, I didn't have insurance at the time to have it checked out. Inconvenient changes.
Finally, though, I got insurance back, and had an X-Ray and MRI done on my back, as the pain has been nearly constant for the past 6 months. It was discovered that I have a bulging, or herniated, disc at L4 and L5 of the lumbar region of the spine, with evidence of an annular tear. An annular tear, I found out, means that the disc has ruptured. The physical therapist I am seeing described the disc as like a jelly doughnut. Jelly doughnuts have a hole in one side where the jelly is squirted in; in my case, the jelly doughnut is being squeezed too hard and the jelly is leaking out of the hole.
Dammit.
Now I'm hungry.
The neurologist I saw prescribed 4-6 weeks of physical therapy, 2-3 days a week. The insurance company only wants to pay for 7 visits, total. The changes I need to make, or need made, cannot possibly happen in such a limited time, so I wonder now if I should even bother. I know I can keep doing the exercises at home after my visits are over, but I don't know if I will learn enough in a weeks worth of visits to benefit me long-term.
If the physical therapy doesn't work well enough, the neurologist wants me to consider epidural steroids. Basically, that means taking a long needle and injecting steroids between the vertebrae in my back. This scares me. And as I understand it, it is really painful. A friend's mother has to have them and has said that the injections hurt worse than the pain in her back. This also scares me. But I don't know of any other options.
Change can be scary.
Changes to my body, changes recommended by the doctor, changes made by the insurance company, changes in my therapy, changes in the future.
Change sucks.
posted by Tom at 3:44 PM
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