That first shower after having had the sutures out was pretty amazing. Ruth put a garden chair in the wet room so I could sit under the shower while she washed me. Habit took over and I started trying to wash my hair, but very quickly realised why they tell you not to raise your hands above your head – it bloody hurts! Despite having then let Ruth do all the work, I was completely wiped out by the time I’d got dried and dressed. Another reminder that it’s still relatively early days and I need to take time to recover – there’s a reason I’ve still got another 7 weeks on my sick-note.
On Sunday I suggested we go for a bit of a drive in the New Forest and get an ice cream. It was so nice to be able to sit in the car and not freaking out about every pot-hole etc. It wasn’t pain free, but as far as my back goes I can say it was very much in the uncomfortable range rather than excruciating pain I’ve been used to. The main thing was keeping my head on the headrest so that it was supported. We found a nice little spot in the Forest with an ice cream van, parked up and I started walking across to the van while Ruth nipped to the loo. Surprising what you can do with the right motivation! 😀 We got our ice creams and walked back towards the car via a seated area. It was absolute bliss to be out in the sunshine and fresh air. Walking the 200m or so back to the car showed how knackered I was again though, and was very glad to have Ruth to lean on as well as my stick. I definitely felt a bit more on the drive back, but still nothing like what I’ve been used to.
On Sunday night I decided not to put a lidocaine patch on to see if I could get a decent night’s sleep without it, and leave myself the possibility of having it on during the day yesterday if I needed it (they are used 12 hours on and 12 hours off). I slept ok, and actually forgot about putting a patch on in the morning. I was pretty tired yesterday so spent the day doing some bits of paperwork and research on the laptop. In the afternoon I noticed I was getting the odd sharp pain in my back, mostly around my left shoulder blade, whereas I’ve typically been used to it being around the right. It was nothing major, but enough to give me a bit of a jolt. This continued during the evening, but I wasn’t aware of it overnight. I was more achy this morning all over my trunk, particularly the lumbar region this morning.
When I was doing my meds for the week on Sunday evening I realised that I couldn’t order my repeat prescription as everything was waiting for review. I rang the GP surgery and they said they would message the practice pharmacist to arrange a review, and also sent me a link that I could send a repeat request to whilst the review gets sorted. I got a call back from the pharmacist almost immediately, and had a really good chat through my medication, the recent surgery and an outline plan for reducing the pain and peripheral neuropathy meds. No changes are going to be made until I’ve seen Mr Mundil in August though, but reducing the pregabalin and duloxetine looks very achievable based on the impact the SCS has had already.
We had a chat about my blood pressure as well. It had been high when I went to pre-assessment in May, and had fluctuated quite a bit whilst I was in hospital, from worryingly high to quite normal. Something I’d also discovered when I was doing my weekly meds on Sunday was that they had mixed up the ramipril I take for high blood pressure, and had put a couple of blister packs of 2.5mg capsules in my box of 10mg capsules. I hadn’t noticed that last week, so had seemingly taken a much lower dose than normal. The pharmacist asked me to take a few BP readings once I felt ok to, but wasn’t particularly worried. He said there is flexibility of increasing the lacidipine I also take as I currently take 2mg, and that can go up to 6mg. I took my BP this morning and was very pleasantly surprised to find that the first reading was 134/84. I was even more surprised when I took another and it had dropped to 130/84, and then a third reading was 129/79. If that continues, then the question is whether it was the chronic pain causing my BP to be raised, or was it work. I’ve not had either for a fortnight so I guess only time will tell.
Whilst I was going through my health measures to add the BP readings to the GP system I noticed my walking asymmetry was 85%. My initial reaction was that 85% wasn’t bad considering how unsteady I’ve been, so I looked at my history. Turns out that 0% is the target to aim for. The graph is quite telling in terms of when things changed. 😏
