One of those weeks...
There's been good and bad, as usual. We'll get the bad news over with first.
Friday morning (6-4-10), my Grandmother died. She'd been in a nursing for a couple of years, and within the past 6 months my Grandad, who died 9 years ago, started visiting her. She enjoyed his visits, it made her day. So no one told her anything to the contrary. Last Thursday she had been sleeping 22 hours a day for the previous 2 weeks, waking only for meals, and Mom and my uncles decided to put a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order in her chart on Friday.
Friday morning she made that decision for them. Her heart stopped in her sleep, she was sent to the hospital, and was declared dead in 10 minutes. From my experience, I know that means they did one round of defibrillation, CPR, and one round of cardiac drugs. The ER doc knew there was no real point, but by law he had to try.
I wasn't able to make it up to Indiana for the funeral, since I wasn't in any shape to make a 300 mile car trip, but my family understands. Enough are medical professionals to know that I shouldn't make 300 car trips, regardless of the circumstances.
On the up side, I'm a patient of a new pain center. I called Friday and was seen Monday as a new patient. The doc did a set of facet injections (cortisone and lidocaine into the joints causing me the most pain), and is backing me down on the opiates. I'll be going to Physical Therapy for a range of motion evaluation this Friday (which is on site), and attending weekly classes on coping techniques (also on site).
This is all required by my doc, but I realized it keeps the drug-seekers away. "I don't want to go through all this crap, I just want my pills..." They even have addiction recovery counseling on site, if needed. It's a full mind/body practice, which works for me.
Other things that have been working for me - acupuncture. I've been going 3 days a week for 3 weeks now, and that has helped quite a bit, especially when the herniated disc in my neck flared up and I partially lost use of my right arm for a couple of weeks. After next week I'll probably drop back to once a week on the acupuncture, unless something else flares up.
Let's see...aside from the cortisone from forcing a swing into a hypomanic phase, not much else going on right now. I've been using Twitter a lot lately; It's easier to update via my phone. I'm Mira_Oubliette if you don't already know.
I'm half-assed writing some Supernatural fics, and I guess I really should post the one here to one of the fic comms. Since TNT started airing the show from episode 1 on, I'm completely hooked now. Not that the Atlantis banner is going away anytime soon. I really need to watch my SGA DVDs for some plot ideas...
ETA: Thank you to forcryinoutloud for the lemur. *skritches*
ETA the Second: Now accepting fic prompts in the comments. Anything goes. I don't think there isn't anything I won't write, and I'll write in fandoms that I don't usually write in (Dune, LotR, Dresden Files, etc).
Friday morning (6-4-10), my Grandmother died. She'd been in a nursing for a couple of years, and within the past 6 months my Grandad, who died 9 years ago, started visiting her. She enjoyed his visits, it made her day. So no one told her anything to the contrary. Last Thursday she had been sleeping 22 hours a day for the previous 2 weeks, waking only for meals, and Mom and my uncles decided to put a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order in her chart on Friday.
Friday morning she made that decision for them. Her heart stopped in her sleep, she was sent to the hospital, and was declared dead in 10 minutes. From my experience, I know that means they did one round of defibrillation, CPR, and one round of cardiac drugs. The ER doc knew there was no real point, but by law he had to try.
I wasn't able to make it up to Indiana for the funeral, since I wasn't in any shape to make a 300 mile car trip, but my family understands. Enough are medical professionals to know that I shouldn't make 300 car trips, regardless of the circumstances.
On the up side, I'm a patient of a new pain center. I called Friday and was seen Monday as a new patient. The doc did a set of facet injections (cortisone and lidocaine into the joints causing me the most pain), and is backing me down on the opiates. I'll be going to Physical Therapy for a range of motion evaluation this Friday (which is on site), and attending weekly classes on coping techniques (also on site).
This is all required by my doc, but I realized it keeps the drug-seekers away. "I don't want to go through all this crap, I just want my pills..." They even have addiction recovery counseling on site, if needed. It's a full mind/body practice, which works for me.
Other things that have been working for me - acupuncture. I've been going 3 days a week for 3 weeks now, and that has helped quite a bit, especially when the herniated disc in my neck flared up and I partially lost use of my right arm for a couple of weeks. After next week I'll probably drop back to once a week on the acupuncture, unless something else flares up.
Let's see...aside from the cortisone from forcing a swing into a hypomanic phase, not much else going on right now. I've been using Twitter a lot lately; It's easier to update via my phone. I'm Mira_Oubliette if you don't already know.
I'm half-assed writing some Supernatural fics, and I guess I really should post the one here to one of the fic comms. Since TNT started airing the show from episode 1 on, I'm completely hooked now. Not that the Atlantis banner is going away anytime soon. I really need to watch my SGA DVDs for some plot ideas...
ETA: Thank you to forcryinoutloud for the lemur. *skritches*
ETA the Second: Now accepting fic prompts in the comments. Anything goes. I don't think there isn't anything I won't write, and I'll write in fandoms that I don't usually write in (Dune, LotR, Dresden Files, etc).