Chit-Chat: a good ol' fashioned DCC!

RedBalloon said:
OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS! I just had my meeting, and they (in an ironic way) did force me to transfer. I'm no longer going to the music school. I'm going to this weird 3 person school. I know my teacher at least, but the school will BE IN A DIFFERENT BUILDING! THIS IS NOT A JOKE! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! THIS IS NOT......you get the idea.

The sad part is...I really wanted to join the mini-choir on their zoom rehearsals. They 100% denied it. I guess....I really can't sing.

I start going to the new school (if you can call it a school) November 30th. Wish me luck. *salutes the PC*
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much luck to you!!

VisionofMilotic said:
I am concerned about my mother. She is a senior and has some health problems. Her blood pressure is high, she also suffers from fibromyalgia and depression. When I was 13 she was hit by a truck and it left her physically disabled and also with post traumatic stress disorder from the ordeal. Her mobility gradually got better and better over the years, and she compensates very well. She can drive herself places, her mind is as sharp as ever and she can do tasks the require some dexterity like working in her garden. She mostly deals with arthritis and stiffness in her joints, especially with the temperature getting cold as winter approaches.

However, this month something has greatly aggravated her condition. She's been in pain all November. Ibuprofen does not even begin to cut it. At first she thought she had just pulled a muscle at the start of the month, but the pain level kept intensifying into what she described as shooting pain in her arm that radiated down her neck and shoulders. She said the pain level was a 10 on the scale of 1-10, and called it excruciating and says it couldn't be more severe. She tried to see her physician, but everything was booked up with her specialist until literally January. My mom goes to a clinic and sees a doctor who specializes in pain management and gives her injections of Cortisone, novacaine and other things that help her when the pain levels flair up. However, Covid has really filled up the schedules of our doctors to say the least. When my mom couldn't get a normal appointment a nurse advised her to go to the hospital instead as an emergency patient since her symptoms were really alarming.

Now my mother hates hospitals, and dreaded the idea of being checked into one. She has anxiety and has trouble waiting indefinitely, and gets irritable, so the idea of sitting in a hospital alone (which is standard because of Covid visitor restrictions) for hours and maybe all day and night was something she was hostile to.

After doing a little research we found a walk-in Urgent Care facility she could go to as an alternative and get same day service. So drove her to Novant Health, and the medical evaluation was that her nerve had been pinched, and they gave her a steroid I think called prednisone for treatment. She also took some codeine.

That really helped managed her pain levels. So since the 9th of this month the pain has been half of what it was by her account, and she feels much better, and gets a little stronger each day, and believes she will be back to normal probably by next month. Went for a follow up at the local medicine clinic. She didn't see her specialist, she is not available until 2021, she was seen by an assistant who prescribed my mom tramadol and muscle relaxers--headed to Walmart to buy them now, the perception is ready.

Mom was on Prednisone, but after a certain amount of days she was told it is not as effective when taken orally, and she needs an injection--so waiting for a call to schedule another urgent care appointment for injections, she's got a referral to a different facility, and also she's being enrolled in physical therapy, going to see a spinal cord specialist and has an MRI scan pending.

I can't help but worry about her, especially at the mention of the MRI scan. This level of pain is not considered normal, so the question is, what is causing it?

I do hope that my mom is okay. I don't like seeing her suffer, and it's never something you want to see somebody you love go through, and she and I are as thick as thieves. I love her.
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sam ;_; all the best to your mother. I can only imagine how horrible this must all be. she will get through it, hopefully very soon! I'll be thinking of her!
 
Thanks everyone for all of your kind words, well wishes, thoughts, prayers and good healthy vibes you've sent out.

Doctor finishing reading my mom's MRI scan this evening, and call after hours, leaving an urgent message on her voicemail to go to the hospital immediately as an emergency patient, said they saw something very concerning on the scan and time was of the essence. The did not say what it was..

I just went with my mom to the hospital. I am not allowed in, and just sitting in the car in the parking lot, watched her wheeled in by paramedics, and felt powerless to do much. She is being triaged now, and I am in the dark left to wait and hope. I'm in a state of shock. Keep us close.
 
My step father was recently released and is exhausted from his stay. Best wishes!
 
Sam, I will keep you and your mom in my thoughts. Stay safe and well you two.

Man, i'm getting such a burnout for...life lately. Internet?...I got a burnout. Gaming?....I got a burnout. Anything?...yup, burnout. Idk where it's coming from. Maybe it's just the way life is playing out right now. I sort of don't even want to go to new school on the 30th anymore. I just want to sleep. I have a strange feeling i'll feel differently in a week or two, but who really knows.
 
So we made it through the first hurdle okay I think. The reason that my mother was experiencing such extreme pain was because the discs in her neck were herniated and pressing down on her spinal cord, and it also made her not able to have mobility in one of her arms. The doctors advised surgery because she would not have much dexterity in her limbs anymore if she didn't do this, and while they could try to manage the pain, the pain was unlikely to ever fully go away without corrective surgery. While it might get marginally better with physical therapy, what would be more likely is continued degeneration over time.

She is really scared of surgery but reluctantly agreed to it because the procedure done to her was fairly common, and comparatively low risk. No surgery is ever no risk as I understand it, especially since my mother has high blood pressure and other underlying medical conditions and with her age it's always a possibility that complications could arise like hemmorhage or breathing difficulties mainly from the anesthesia, but the reported success rate of this surgery is extremely high. The head neurosurgeon had performed the same surgery 3 times that day before my mom, with no complications.

So my had surgery on Friday afternoon, and she came through it good by evening. Her blood pressure and heart rate was normal after surgery, she didn't need oxygen like many patients afterward, she could breathe, and was lucid, she could talk and knew where she was. She was in the hospital this weekend recovering. She has some pain still, but it's the soreness from the surgery that is expected to go away in time. She says the severe pain that she had previously shooting all over her body arm, neck and back is almost gone. So that's very encouraging to hear. She was healing so well that they released her from the hospital early, so she is home in time for the Thanksgiving holidays after.

The hardest part is that they had to make a cut in the front of her neck for the surgery. Because her neck discs were herniated and the bones compressed down they put plates inside her to support her neck, and a tube was inserted in there to give her more spinal fluid because the MRI scans showed that she had very little. Her throat is extremely sore right now from all the work that was done in that area, and she couldn't even drink water the first night after the surgery. It was painful to swallow. The surgeons prepared us to expect that at first though, my mother is doing better than a lot of people would in the first few days. Some can't speak at all after the surgery, and can't breathe independent of oxygen. So she's doing okay so far, well enough that the hospital felt it was safe to release her.

I try to be mindful of my mom's diet. She is able to drink alright now and eat some non-solid foods. So I try to cook things will be easy for her to swallow while she rests in bed. She is normally fairly active for her age and likes to drive, walk her dog and garden, but all of that has to wait right now. She is not allowed to lift more than 5 pounds at the moment, and should avoid turning her neck too much while she heals up. Things look like they're getting a little better each day.

/Knocks wood
 
Thinking of you two for sure!
I'll have to get surgery, but it's to repair a botched previous one...
 
Tomorrow's the day, but I got a great and POWERFUL plan! After two or three days or a week of the new school, i'll pretend to "hate" it, then i'll email my old principle and be like "You forced me into this situation, I demand access to your mini-choir" since the principle of my old school was the one that recommended this new school. I can get access to her email easily because.....plot holes. xD Yup, she stupidly allowed plot holes. I can demand another zoom meeting and so on.

But in reality regarding the new school *clings to PC* I DON'T WANNA GOOOOOOO! *sobs*
 
RedBalloon said:
Just got news...I don't start this new school until WEDNESDAY! I woke up early for F***ING NOTHING! *grumble grumble*
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well at least it doesn't start til monday!! \o/

hi everyone
 
RedBalloon said:
Hey Tyler....weird name change, didn't recognize you for a second there. How are ya?
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hey there!! /late
i've been well, how have you been?! as far as the new username..i was just thinking of trying something new
 
I have it disabled lol, I style my username in my flair.
 
Mine was still disabled from last year and I have no intention of changing that haha
 
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