OW!

Man, does this hurt! Last week my niece, grandniece and I decided to have our weekly Thursday lunch at Applebees. In the process of getting settled, I sat, scooting my chair forward to the table....you know the routine.......grab the chair, lift your butt a bit, pull chair forward, settle butt back down and let go of the chair all kind of in one fluid motion? However.....this chair had a loose seat and lifted as I pulled, which resulted in my index fingers sliding between the chair seat and the frame. But, because it's such an "all in one" motion, before I could react and stop myself from settling my butt back down and letting go of the chair, I'd already done it, and found myself in HORRID PAIN! Both my index fingers had been pinched between the seat and the frame, but the worst part was that the right one got caught on some jagged metal (probably where the frame and seat were supposed to be hooked), and before I could take a breath, I had part of my fingernail ripped off along with a deep puncture wound. (the left finger just slid out and got scraped a bit, no big injury). Talk about shock!!

I have to say, the staff at Applebees was great. My first reaction was to wrap it up to stem the flow of blood - the waitress and assistant manager went and got more napkins and a bag of ice and bandaids. Then I looked at it to determine extent of damage and realized that I was going to need medical care - the piece of fingernail that had been ripped off wasn't off...it was hanging by a thread and was waaaaay up the nailbed. Obviously the bandaids weren't gonna do it, so we requested bandaging materials - which they brought right out (which my niece helped me put on). When I showed them the injury and told them I'd have go for care, their immediate reaction was "no problem, just let us get an incident report filled out and then you go wherever you wish to and have the bill sent to us. I said, of course, fine....but it's stopped bleeding and isn't life threatening, so we're eating lunch first!

So....an hour or so later, the doctor said it didn't look like any nail bed damage, and the puncture looked clean (well, YA.....I pretty much bet that all that blood flushed out any germs!!!) so it should heal well. I had an appointment with my doctor on Monday for my usual PT/INR, so I had her look at it while I was there - I thought it was healing normally, but it doesn't hurt to doublecheck......and I was right. I do, of course, bump the stupid thing a few hundred times a day, so it's sore all the time, of course.......sheesh. But, I've gone from gauze padding and tape to a couple of bandaids with some paper type tape to hold them on.

Meanwhile, things are still busy here.....did I mention that typing with one finger out of commission is really SLOW????

All's well otherwise.

Done Ramblin

Surprise!

It hasn't even been a month and I'm posting again! There's not a lot of news, which is why I figured I could get this done with the few minutes I have.

We're still right out straight with work.....between work already scheduled and work to be scheduled, the first free day I see on our calendar is Dec. 16. However....the phones have definitely slowed down, so it's possible that that date will stay a free day....you never know with this business!

This means the office is nearly at a standstill, so my stress level has been up....yay.

However...the Lyrica is still working...not quite as well as in the beginning, but still enough so that I'm relieved to be at a lower pain level. I have another 2 weeks before my next office visit - we'll see.

Done Ramblin

How could I have forgotten????

My doctor is trying me on a new med to try to help my pain issue - Lyrica. I was very sceptical because it was developed for diabetic & shingles pain originally, now used for fibromialgia, which I've not been diagnosed with. However, the doc said a lot of my pain seems to be from nerve damage, and this helps that type, so I said ok, I'll try it. She gave me a starter pack card and said "report to me in a week, please." I was to take a one week written prescription to the pharmacy with that card and I'd get that week trial for free. Ok.....then I nearly fainted when I saw how much it would have cost if I had to pay for it - EEEEEP. But then, I figured, hey, it's not gonna work anyway, so no biggie. They say it sometimes takes a week or more for it to work, IF it's going to - and it doesn't work on all people. Right.

The good news is.....within 4 days I was in MUCH less pain.....WOOHOO.......and for the first time in about 8 years, I'm able, on some days, to walk up and down short flights of steps like a normal person, instead of going one foot and bringing the other up to meet it....and walking without a limp on most days...and able to bend over without nearly passing out from pain on some days, too! Whaddayaknow.....the Lyrica is working. The doctor has given me enough samples to get me through until I'm scheduled to see her again (about 5 weeks).

The bad news......this drug has no generic form, so unless I can find some sort of special deal, I am not willing to change my lifestyle as dramatically as needed in order to afford this drug - about $170 a month, which is about how much we spend per month eating out locally and eating out when I need to travel to get business stuff, and some of our personal gas money. Considering that eating out is basically my ONLY social life 3/4 of the year....and that we pick up a LOT of business when we eat out locally (I actually have to carry Ed's schedule to the diner (in a PDA), as seeing us reminds people that they need Ed to do work for them, so they schedule it then and there).....it just doesn't make sense to cut it all out just to lower my pain.

I do plan on asking my doctor if there is some other drug out there that works the same way as Lyrica, but that comes in generic form. So, wish me luck!

Again, done ramblin