Saturday, February 3, 2018

Getting It Done Anyway

Written by Kodi Wolf at 9:09 PM

January was kind of fucked up for me. Lots of medical stuff had me less than focused on my writing, but I made it a point to get my writing done anyway and Corene really helped me with that (she's an excellent brainstorming partner).

My total word count for January was 22,593, which averages out to 729 words per day. My lowest words per day was 80 and my highest was 2,593.

So, the medical drama.

After ending up in the ER in August and December from passing kidney stones last year, I finally got referred to a urologist who recommended lithotripsy. That's where they use ultrasound shockwaves to blast the stones into grit without cutting into you.

My last urologist never even mentioned it as an option, but I'm on Medicaid and I've found certain doctors tend to leave out options if they think Medicaid won't cover it. I definitely like this new doctor better.

Anyway, I had the procedure on Monday (January 29). It went well and I only had a little bruising (it looks like a red firework on the left side of my back). I had a 6mm and a 4mm stone that are now just grit, which I'm having to drink lots of water and do inversion therapy to flush them out. If I don't, they could act as nodes to form new crystals, which I really don't want.

Doing all that while having fibromyalgia has been the hardest part. I have to get myself into an inverted (head down, ass up) position for 30 minutes 2-3 times each day, which my muscles and neck are not happy about at all. I've pretty much felt like I'm in boot camp.

Plus I somehow strained my right bicep muscle in the middle of January, so that's made maneuvering into and holding that inverted position even more difficult (try lifting your body weight with one arm after doing a hundred pushups and you'll get an idea of how weak and sore my fibro muscles feel).

On the bright side, because of that muscle strain I was referred to an orthopedist who determined I don't have carpal tunnel (yay!), but instead have tenosynovitis, which is basically just inflammation (score another one for fibromyalgia).

Of course, for the lithotripsy, I had to go off all anti-inflammatory drugs, so I'm only just now getting back on ibuprofen. I also have hand exercises to do, which should help (haven't started them yet... I can only handle one medical thing at a time).

Anyway, so that was January.

I'm hoping February will let me settle back into a routine now that I've figured out how to do the inversion stuff a little better. We went out and bought an inversion table, which we'd been looking into before for Corene's back, so it isn't just for me (and it's been helping her, so that's cool).

My goals at this point are to do my medical stuff and get my writing done every day. I really don't want to break my streak over this.

Wish me luck. :)