Frayed Nerves

[trickykitty]

I have a minor surgery scheduled for Wednesday morning to hopefully take care of a hidradenitis suppurativa issue I have in my right armpit. DO NOT GO LOOKING THAT UP. Basically, it's acne gone nuts in high-sweat areas (armpits, under boobs, groin and butt area), and it turns into really bad boils. Mine is very painful when it flares up, as boils typically are, but my hidradenitis is in its infant stage compared to the pics you will find on the internet. I only have one tunnel under the skin issue, but pics of advanced hidradenitis makes even me gag, which is why I'm giving you fair warning not to go researching it.

So, surgery tomorrow morning. This was scheduled a couple of weeks ago once we were able to confirm (after the 3rd flareup) that the area was clear of bacterial infection.

Enter my left shoulder. A couple weeks ago I was doing a lot of filing at work, which entailed grabbing 3-4 inch hanging files completely full of invoices with my left hand and moving them around to different drawers. (I tend to file with my left hand, which also means papers tend to be "upside-down" in folders compared to how most other right-handed people file. Yay for weird ambidexterity.) 3-4" of papers like that is a bit heavy, but I'm otherwise used to it. However, I felt afterwards that I might have pulled something in my shoulder area. No worries. It'll get better.

But it didn't. It got progressively more painful to the point that I spent the weekend whining about a constant throb that I couldn't quite shake and muscle aches radiating down my arm. I couldn't sleep well Sunday night, and I woke up Monday morning unable to get out of bed without minor screeching in pain. I called my regular doctor and she was unavailable for an appointment yesterday, so I have an appointment with her this morning. I was in too much pain to not see anyone, so I paid a visit to my chiropractor. He said it doesn't appear to be a rotator cuff, because I seem to have full range of motion without the typical pain associated with that type of injury. Instead, based on description and palpations, we're pretty sure it's a pinched nerve somewhere between my neck and should blade. I can now tell that the pain is radiating directly from under the shoulder blade, but he said the pinched nerve could still actually be in the neck, given the way nerves work. My upper arm is now randomly having spasms as though I have a TENS unit attached to it right where that stupid flu shot was given to me a couple months ago, which also took out my upper arm muscle for a good week or so.

On a 0-10 scale, I'm maintaining a constant level 3-5 throbbing pain with spikes up to 8 whenever I move certain ways, like reaching for something (with either arm) or tilting/turning my head. I can't put on my socks without a major pain spike, and oh yeah, wiping after using the restroom, holy hell. The only relief I've found is, starting from a standing position, bending over slowly, letting my hands and head drop down, and just dangling there. The head dropping down is important. If I try to bend over with my head looking forward or if I lift my head even a smidgen while dangling, the pain spikes again. So that confirms it's definitely somewhere in that neck-to-shoulder muscle area. However, I can only dangle like that for maybe a minute at most before the blood piles up in my head and I feel like a goofball idiot.

I couldn't sleep at all on my left side last night. Any attempt was met with harsh criticism by the shoulder. Laying on my right side had its moments. So did laying on my back. I know from the previous boils under my right arm that I'm not going to want to sleep on my right side after the surgery, so that leaves sleeping on my back, which I can never do for any length of time. That's not really any different from last night. I have Tramadol left over from the last boil incident and Valium for my TMJ. I took one Tramadol at around 9pm, went to sleep around 10:45, took another Tramadol at 12:30, took a Valium at 2:45, woke up again at 4am and wished I could overdose on something, but then remembered I don't have a death wish, so just went back to sleep, and woke up again at 6am, 30 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, and decided to go ahead and take 2 more Tramadol to get me through the morning drive to the doctor's office and then to work. If they work as well as they did last night, I still won't be lacking in pain by the time I see the doctor.

I'm now sitting here typing this up, because I have nothing better to do while I'm icing my back before I turn around and take a hot shower and go to see the doc. I'm really not looking forward to trying to sleep tonight before surgery early, early tomorrow morning. Since I'm pretty sure I won't be going in to work at any point tomorrow, I'm tempted to take some Nyquil along with whatever painkiller the surgeon prescribes for me. The dextromethorphan in Nyquil makes me high and will probably be the best solution to any residual pain if the painkiller itself isn't quite enough.

I feel like Woody Harrelson's Larry Flint when he took so many pills for pain. I dealt with the same thing with the costochondritis before I knew it was costochondritis and I was taking everything under the sun just to get the pain to stop.

The rest of this week is going to suck ass.