Who's afraid of a little needle?
I have developed a terrible habit of overextending myself after driving mom to the airport. Last time I ran too many errands, a mistake I of course repeated today. Because she had to be at the airport around 7:40am and then I had an appointment at OHSU (way on the other end of town) at 10:20 am and what's the point of going home for less than an hour that early in the morning? Plus, there's LOTS of shopping near the airport. Including Costco (gas under $3/gallon, so I filled up), Kmart, and the Sears outlet store. Didn't do any research ahead of time so Costco and Sears outlet were closed, but I did get gas and shlepped around Kmart for a bit. No new fridge shopping for me today. But there was errand-running, then Dr appointment/procedure-having, then socialness. All in one over packed day (well, over packed for me, lately.)
Visit to OHSU orthapedics was, as usual, an experience in misery. Dr running 30 minutes behind, 40 minutes till the procedure room was available. Today was steroid injection directly into the hip capsule. Got into the super sexeh blue paper shorts
and waited for a bit (long enough to take several photos like this one)
for the Dr...one of the few Drs at OHSU ortho I haven't met with before. He was nice enough, talked me through the procedure beforehand, and answered all my questions. OK to shower "as soon as you get home", bath or pool tomorrow...just long enough to let the needle poke site heal up though there's very little concern of anything getting past the skin and soft tissue and into the hip capsule. But hey, I'm still not ready for the pool as the left side abdominal incision lost it's scab and reopened yesterday. Grrrrr. That one incision site, the smallest of the four, just doesn't want to stay closed!
But hey, check out how nice that umbilical incision site is looking! Scarring nicely, tho I'm certainly not gonna go exploring inside my belly button anytime soon ;P
He warned me that there would be discomfort after, maybe for a day, maybe two, and that the steroid could take effect anywhere from 4-48 hours. There was lidocaine in this round again, so I was looking forward to that nice relief from pain for a few hours at least. Then came the ceremonial (ok, not ceremonial, totally functional and practical) rending of the knickers to get to the right upper thigh and groin area. Glad that I touched up my bikini line and bathed last night. Area was sanitized then gooped up lightly for the ultrasound machine. He smooshed the US dohickey around to locate my femur, arteries, blood vessels, soft tissue, and hip capsule. That smooshing hurt. Not as much as the shoving of the huge needle into the hip joint and then the injection of 5 ccs of liquid into the joint...yeah, that hurt. More than the previous steroid injection and even the arthrogram. Not sure why, I was right in the middle of a tylenol cycle, perhaps because this injection was practically right on top of one of the incision sites from the hip surgery. Maybe it hit a bunch of scar tissue on the way through? Whyever, during and afterwards felt like I'd been punched HARD right over the bruises from the first surgery. The pain did let up after a few seconds and then the endorphins of the huge needle jab set in and i started feeling a little giddy. Used the mirror in the room to take the above photo with the ripped paper knickers as well as some of the healing scars.
The bandaid here covers the new jab site as well as one of the first surgery scars. The bruise is, I thin, leftover from acupuncture (nothing to do with surgery or steroid injections.)
After the procedure went downstairs to treat myself to a delicious smoothie at the cafe, only to realize that the OHSU CHH cafe does not serve smoothies. I was thinking of the cafe at Providence in the Cancer Tower where I had a fantastic peanut butter kale almond milk smoothie while waiting for my last post-op appointment with the liver surgeon. Bummer. That bummed me out more than the huge needle or continuing to feel like i'd been punched in the groin. Plus some bonus knee pain, cuz why not? Needed to stop by the pharmacy to fill the latest scrip for painpills (came in the mail a few days ago but I hadn't been by the pharmacy since) which was a VERY good move as I'm currently sitting on the sofa watching Gray's Anatomy and waiting for a full 2mg dilaudid to kick in. Yeah, tonight is totally a "take a pill" kinda night. Been about 30 minutes so far and not feeling it yet, but if my spelling and grammar starts to go pear-shaped, that's why.
Headed home, watched a movie (Only Lovers Left Alive, perfect for my mood) while sucking down my homemade consolation smoothie (sans kale, plus cocoa powder) and praying for a fresh tylenol to be enough that I could leave the house. It worked, which was good cuz a friend was having a crappy craft day and needed an extra set of eyes...plus someone to watch Nightmare Before Christmas with their kids during a parent teacher conference. I managed to not kill their kids, watch a movie, and got fed a nice avocado pasilla burrito for my troubles. And while it was annoying as heck to drive over there and home, it was good to get out of the house and away from that funk. And man did I have a wicked funk this afternoon. As much as mom annoys the crap out of me, and as much of a huge relief as it was to come home, alone, to an empty house, it was also really nice in some ways to have her around. I was irritate last night to miss out on OMSI After Dark because she didn't want to go and I didn't want to leave her at home alone, packing, on her last night in town. So i stayed home while she packed and resented not being out having fun. But at the same time, I knew that had I gone out I would have been exhausted and cranky...so it was probably best for me to have stayed home. Yeah, complicated feelings continue to be complicated. She got home safe and well and apparently sat next to a professor on the place and wants me to call her because she "took notes." How weird must it be to have the lady sitting next to you on a plane take notes on your conversation? Yup, that's my mom. I'll call her tomorrow and find out what kind of conversation it was.
Whew, the pain pill is finally kicking in. What a huge relief.
Visit to OHSU orthapedics was, as usual, an experience in misery. Dr running 30 minutes behind, 40 minutes till the procedure room was available. Today was steroid injection directly into the hip capsule. Got into the super sexeh blue paper shorts
and waited for a bit (long enough to take several photos like this one)
for the Dr...one of the few Drs at OHSU ortho I haven't met with before. He was nice enough, talked me through the procedure beforehand, and answered all my questions. OK to shower "as soon as you get home", bath or pool tomorrow...just long enough to let the needle poke site heal up though there's very little concern of anything getting past the skin and soft tissue and into the hip capsule. But hey, I'm still not ready for the pool as the left side abdominal incision lost it's scab and reopened yesterday. Grrrrr. That one incision site, the smallest of the four, just doesn't want to stay closed!
But hey, check out how nice that umbilical incision site is looking! Scarring nicely, tho I'm certainly not gonna go exploring inside my belly button anytime soon ;P
He warned me that there would be discomfort after, maybe for a day, maybe two, and that the steroid could take effect anywhere from 4-48 hours. There was lidocaine in this round again, so I was looking forward to that nice relief from pain for a few hours at least. Then came the ceremonial (ok, not ceremonial, totally functional and practical) rending of the knickers to get to the right upper thigh and groin area. Glad that I touched up my bikini line and bathed last night. Area was sanitized then gooped up lightly for the ultrasound machine. He smooshed the US dohickey around to locate my femur, arteries, blood vessels, soft tissue, and hip capsule. That smooshing hurt. Not as much as the shoving of the huge needle into the hip joint and then the injection of 5 ccs of liquid into the joint...yeah, that hurt. More than the previous steroid injection and even the arthrogram. Not sure why, I was right in the middle of a tylenol cycle, perhaps because this injection was practically right on top of one of the incision sites from the hip surgery. Maybe it hit a bunch of scar tissue on the way through? Whyever, during and afterwards felt like I'd been punched HARD right over the bruises from the first surgery. The pain did let up after a few seconds and then the endorphins of the huge needle jab set in and i started feeling a little giddy. Used the mirror in the room to take the above photo with the ripped paper knickers as well as some of the healing scars.
The bandaid here covers the new jab site as well as one of the first surgery scars. The bruise is, I thin, leftover from acupuncture (nothing to do with surgery or steroid injections.)
After the procedure went downstairs to treat myself to a delicious smoothie at the cafe, only to realize that the OHSU CHH cafe does not serve smoothies. I was thinking of the cafe at Providence in the Cancer Tower where I had a fantastic peanut butter kale almond milk smoothie while waiting for my last post-op appointment with the liver surgeon. Bummer. That bummed me out more than the huge needle or continuing to feel like i'd been punched in the groin. Plus some bonus knee pain, cuz why not? Needed to stop by the pharmacy to fill the latest scrip for painpills (came in the mail a few days ago but I hadn't been by the pharmacy since) which was a VERY good move as I'm currently sitting on the sofa watching Gray's Anatomy and waiting for a full 2mg dilaudid to kick in. Yeah, tonight is totally a "take a pill" kinda night. Been about 30 minutes so far and not feeling it yet, but if my spelling and grammar starts to go pear-shaped, that's why.
Headed home, watched a movie (Only Lovers Left Alive, perfect for my mood) while sucking down my homemade consolation smoothie (sans kale, plus cocoa powder) and praying for a fresh tylenol to be enough that I could leave the house. It worked, which was good cuz a friend was having a crappy craft day and needed an extra set of eyes...plus someone to watch Nightmare Before Christmas with their kids during a parent teacher conference. I managed to not kill their kids, watch a movie, and got fed a nice avocado pasilla burrito for my troubles. And while it was annoying as heck to drive over there and home, it was good to get out of the house and away from that funk. And man did I have a wicked funk this afternoon. As much as mom annoys the crap out of me, and as much of a huge relief as it was to come home, alone, to an empty house, it was also really nice in some ways to have her around. I was irritate last night to miss out on OMSI After Dark because she didn't want to go and I didn't want to leave her at home alone, packing, on her last night in town. So i stayed home while she packed and resented not being out having fun. But at the same time, I knew that had I gone out I would have been exhausted and cranky...so it was probably best for me to have stayed home. Yeah, complicated feelings continue to be complicated. She got home safe and well and apparently sat next to a professor on the place and wants me to call her because she "took notes." How weird must it be to have the lady sitting next to you on a plane take notes on your conversation? Yup, that's my mom. I'll call her tomorrow and find out what kind of conversation it was.
Whew, the pain pill is finally kicking in. What a huge relief.