Quack, Quack Little Duck

I have dreamt about what happened Saturday, for months, I was so excited!  I finally got to take a bath!  It was celebration time!

You have to understand that due to all of the surgeries and holes drilled through my legs - showers and bathing have been out since the beginning of April!  No not a yuck, I bought lots of boxes of Handy Wipes and have cleansed myself regularly with those wonderful alcohol drenched pads.  Though they work well, I discovered that their "fresh scent" could not over come the odor from the antibiotic soaked body they were used on.  Not a yuck but an odd smell that requires Old Bay Rum to mask.  LOL.

First up, I pulled the show curtain from out of tub and OMG!  Mold!  Everywhere!  Two hours of work later and every last trace of mold is gone and the tub has been drenched with Clorox!  YUCK!  Then wash the tub out several times to remove the Clorox and we can begin again.

Hmmmm, the tub is filling, I stage soap, shampoo, washcloth towels and a squeaky toy.  I thought about photographing this beautiful scene ... but as is or with me in the tub?  I chose not to take a picture at all.  If I was in the photo, I would die of embarrassment.  If I was not in the water, then everyone would know I am the coward I am!  No winning this one.  I slid into the warm waters.   AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Well, let us just say it was an awesome experience.  But, I did not wash my hair because I started having chest pains, so time to get out after only an hour!

The chest pain would not go away and then I had growing radiating pain across my shoulder blades.  So, just hanging loose not sure what is going on.  Went to dinner, everything was fine.  Stopped to pick up some sympathy cards for a family whose father just died; I knew the family but not the father.  He has been extremely ill for as long as I have been here!

I turn to walk to the cash register and BLAM!  Crippling pain in my left foot, then my left knee would not support me, I try to grab on to a counter but my left hand would not grab anything!  And then the whole left side of my body went numb.

A stroke, first thing on my mind.  Father had 5 major strokes and 18 minor ones, so I do try and watch myself closely.  The whole left side of my body is now dead but I managed to make it back to the car, it took close to 30 minutes to travel that 20 or so feet, but I made it.  I did not go to the hospital because I could smile, so whatever this was it was not a stroke, maybe a minor one?

Went to bed with a hot pad, the pain was so intense across my shoulders and hips, this had to be spinal.  I tried heating and then manipulating my spine, intense pain was the only result.  Then my right hand went dead.  Fine I will just be brain dead by morning!  Stupid Kris!  Took a massive Codeine and passed out.  Next up gates of Heaven!

Alas, no.  Sunday, I woke up in massive pain.  Did not make it to Heaven nor church, still in Hell, sigh.  Okay, kick in brain, what does this tell me?  It is obviously beyond my knowledge, but I am intensely analytical if nothing else.

Then I suddenly remembered one rescue on Longs Peak in Colorado in 1972, the guy had fallen and was hanging at 13,500 feet more or less.  In those days it meant a backboard carry of some 9 miles to get him out and with a spinal injury we all knew what that meant!  It was a death sentence in those days, today there are helicopters which can fly at those altitudes, but not back then!  We lowered him to a ledge and quickly concluded he had a neck injury - no there were no cool inflatable collars back then.  He had no other injuries.  He was pleading for death but I got some snow and packed his neck, for the next hour.  He did a great deal of screaming through this.  The swelling went down enough I could feel the disk which had slipped sideways.  So, gentle pressure - POP! and it was back in.  Slowly feeling returned to his body and I used a Coleman handwarmer to gently heat his neck area and my frozen hands!  In all, 5 hours and he could begin the 9 mile walk: gingerly and slowly with assistance.  Yeah, happy camper and he was told to see a doctor ASAP!  It felt good to do something right.  On a mountain face I always did right, everything is logical; it was back home in the city where mostly I screwed up - sigh.

Since then I have also learned that heat can loosen muscles in my neck and I thought about this, could I have popped a disk?  Well, all it took was to run hands along both sides of the neck to tell me it was not my neck.  Back to the heating pad.  I wiggled around trying to get the spine into alignment again, still no improvement, lots of screaming for an hour.  Finally, I heated my shoulders, my hips, up and down the spine and rolled my head around in increasingly larger circles.  Then SNAP, CRACKLE, POP!, and the pain subsided just that fast!

Yeah, last night I could not even sit upright nor use my left side.  Today, now, I am sitting here typing Monday's post!  Go figure!  Oh I did figure out that the chest and back pain were from cleaning the tub and being bent over - and yeah, that still hurts big time!  But, I can move again!

I guess the old adage of too much of a good thing also applies to being in hot water!

LOL!