Feb. 26: Ouchie, part XXVIX

A brief timeline of my health…

September 1968: I am born.

1968-2008: I injure myself on a regular basis, mostly due to clumsiness, zits from hell and bike-riding while blindfolded.

Early December 2008: I go in to my regular doctor for a physical. She tells me the pain I’ve had in my abdomen for several years is a hernia and refers me to a surgeon.

Late December 2008: I see the surgeon, who says because of the location of my pain, it is probably not a hernia. He orders a CT scan and finds a tumor on my abdominal wall, which he is fairly sure is not cancerous, but needs to be removed.

Early January 2009: The tumor, which is the size of a chicken egg, is surgically removed. I spend about a week and a half recuperating and go back to work. I later realize that was a teensy bit too ambitious.

Mid January 2009: Lab results show the tumor is endometrial tissue, which has been growing in my abdominal wall since one of my C-sections, either in 2000 or 2001. I blame the 2001 kid because that’s the kind of thing he’d do.

Late January 2009: I come down with a severe headache. It starts out like most do but after a few days the nausea sets in. I am unable to keep any food or liquids down for almost three days and finally go to the emergency room to be treated for dehydration. While there I am also given powerful pain medication, which takes the edge off the headache but does not make it go away. My doctor also suspects a urinary tract infection—for no other reason than having seen a connection between headaches and UTIs in women—and I go on antibiotics when the test comes back positive. It takes three more days before my headache is gone. I spend almost as long recovering from this experience as I did from abdominal surgery a few weeks earlier.

Early February 2009: Like the rest of the northern hemisphere, I come down with a cold. Mine is mostly in my throat and becomes so painful that I cannot swallow or talk or breathe without strangling whoever is closest to me. I lose my voice for a day. A large spot on the back of my tongue feels raw and makes eating or drinking virtually impossible. Doctor says it is not strep or tonsillitis; it is a nasty sinus infection. I go on antibiotics again. For almost a week it feels like there’s a potato chip lodged in my throat. It is an unpleasant sensation.

Mid February 2009: I’m all better! For a whole week, I’m able to work and volunteer and try to get caught up on life! I’d forgotten how nice it was to feel alive and (mostly) well.

Late February 2009: I start feeling dull pain in my lower back, and after a couple days I head to the doctor because it feels like a kidney infection again. I’m relieved when tests show it isn’t my kidneys, but then why all the pain? The doctor presses several points on my spine and says a vertebra has slipped out of position (or something like that); he does some chiropractic adjustments that seem to loosen things. Whew! I leave feeling better, but by the same time the next day I’m worse than ever. It’s hard to stand up straight. It hurts to sit. It hurts to lay flat. It hurts to lie on my side. The only way I can sleep is with drugs, and the leftover supply of Vicodin from my surgery is quickly depleted. The pain gets worse and worse until the only thing I can do is tell you about it.

I think my health can best be described with a phrase made famous by the very wise Roseanne Roseannadanna: “It just goes to show you, it’s always something.”

I’m really tired of it always being something.