Stress on Top of Stress

What a day I had yesterday! After waiting an extra month to get a nerve block, I was finally on my way to get it. Steve was with me because I cannot drive home after getting it. I asked him to call Saturn to check on the status of getting my 2007 Vue back. We had taken it in for the seventh time for the Check Engine light coming on. Saturn had decided my problem was living on a gravel road and dust gets in the gas cap. They've replaced it twice, changed cracked hoses,replaced a black box, and more and still the light comes on. This time they cleaned the undercarriage, dropped the gas tank and cleaned around it. When they went to put the tank back they noticed it is thinner on one side where it connects, than the other side. So this time I get a new gas tank.

Back to Steve calling them. I became really frustrated that this was the reason all along probably, according to Saturn. So I will be driving the loaner for a day or so more which hurts my back to sit in and to get in and out of the car is a killer. On to the nerve block. Dr. Simon said this will be my fourth block since April (I fell in the parking lot at work and have been off on Worker's Comp ever since). Four is too many to have in one year. Also, my pulse is too high to get a block. He also said that I've never had a block on the low right back so he couldn't do it. He said this as he's flipping through my chart noticing my first block was on the right side. At this point the nurse comes in the room as he needs to go take a physician's call.

Talk about stress. I've already taken meds to get this block and now he isn't going to let me get it? When he came back in another nurse walked in. He told her to go ahead and take me across the hall and give me the IV with a sedative and two other drugs to see if they can get my heartrate slower. Mercifully, the rate went down and he came in and did the block. Once it was over Steve took me home and the rest of the evening went uneventfully, thank goodness.

I had four or five herniated disks in my back and a bulging disk in my neck before falling in February. I received those in a car accident back in 2000. A car going the same direction as me came into my lane. I went off the road to avoid it and it still hit me. The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel with his cruise control on. I had nerve blocks for two or three years and then as long as I went to arthritis classes in warm water, I kept it in control. When I fell in February of this year, I received another bulging disk in the lower back and have been in severe pain ever since. I cannot sit, stand or walk for very long and trying to go to sleep is impossible. When I do finally get to sleep, I only sleep for two to three hours and then wake up again in severe pain.

When I complain that life isn't fair I am reminded that there are only two kinds of fair: bus fare and county fair. My back is starting to throb now so I'd best end this here.