Wow! Has it really been since January that I left a blog post? UGH! How embarrassing!
Well, the long story is I had a terrible back injury about the time we finished the floor for the work out room and I am just now gettting to the point where I don't have to be heavily medicated and sitting on a special seat cushion. MRI scans showed that I had a herniated disc which was pushing on the sciatic nerve which is why I had such severe pain in my right buttock and down my right leg! Listen folks, I could barely sit, stand, walk, sleep....anything! The herniated disc was the same one I injured back in 2006 which I eventually had surgery to fix.
Well, the long story is I had a terrible back injury about the time we finished the floor for the work out room and I am just now gettting to the point where I don't have to be heavily medicated and sitting on a special seat cushion. MRI scans showed that I had a herniated disc which was pushing on the sciatic nerve which is why I had such severe pain in my right buttock and down my right leg! Listen folks, I could barely sit, stand, walk, sleep....anything! The herniated disc was the same one I injured back in 2006 which I eventually had surgery to fix.
After the MRI results I immediately went under the care of an Interventional Pain Management Specialist (that is a mouth full!) She prescribed me physical therapy and treated me with a couple of intense epidural injections (one I think was called a caudal injection). Both of these were in my lower back, the caudal one was sort of upwards from below my waistline. OUCH! Those, tons of PT visists, and 3 different pain meds kept me barely mobile and barely alert for the whole spring semester at work. See the image above from my MRI Scan! :)
It was probably the worst semester of school I've had in my 11 years of teaching college! I had two speech classes, a full set of theatre courses and we (years in advance) deciced to mount a huge theatre production called Angels in America (which is actually two plays) which we performed for two weekends parts one and two on alternating nights. Oh Man was it rough! I'll just say my time/student management skills were not at their best and work with my colleague was less than fun! The show ran just fine, we had everything we needed, it just wasnt exactly what I had dreamed!
It was probably the worst semester of school I've had in my 11 years of teaching college! I had two speech classes, a full set of theatre courses and we (years in advance) deciced to mount a huge theatre production called Angels in America (which is actually two plays) which we performed for two weekends parts one and two on alternating nights. Oh Man was it rough! I'll just say my time/student management skills were not at their best and work with my colleague was less than fun! The show ran just fine, we had everything we needed, it just wasnt exactly what I had dreamed!
Eventually I began to feel a little better and by late June began asking to be weaned off of some of the meds. I taught summer school in June (night class) and it too was not my best work (I got so darn sleepy around classtime and just wasnt on my A game!) BUT once the meds started leaving my system I began to feel a lot better.
In July, I headed out on an 8 hour drive to DeKalb, IL to be part of my 14th year of NIU Theatre Arts Camp. I took my reduced regimine of meds and didnt work as physically hard as years past and survived just fine! I even danced a little at the Toga Dance party!
This picture is of me in my famous "Mischievous Kittens Toga" with my friend Melanie (Head Costume Designer at NIU and the camp director!)
Upon my return from camp I had another doc visit and due to my great success at camp, we weaned me off of drug number two of three! The last of them was a 25 microgram pain patch changed out every 3 days (normally given to people age 50 and up). AND now, for the last 2 weeks I've been on half of that dose 12.5 micrograms.
Next week I will have another followup to see what my next step is! I'm a little nervous because sometimes I get the pain back, but most of the time I feel pretty good with the patch.
Tune in next time to find out if Nathan is drug free yet!
Tune in next time to find out if Nathan is drug free yet!
