cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I Give Up. I'll Have the Surgery. I do not want to be defined by pain any more. I've had enough. I have literally been in constant pain for months. From the moment I wake up to the last few minutes of rubbing at the surrounding muscles before sleep I am in constant pain. I can't even use a pair of gardening pruners for more than a minute now. I can't swing a machete, can't use a hammer, can't chop wood, can't lift weights, etc. etc. Right now I am seriously considering scheduling surgery for my left elbow in October. Any time after I get back from Munich and Austria. I'm somewhat concered about having my left arm out of commission for hunting season, but there are ways of working around most of those issues. One possibility would be to depend heavily on my monopod, or better yet purchase a tripod to shoot off of. That way I've got the fore end of the rifle being artifically supported without having to use my left arm. Shotgunning would be out of the question for the duration, but I can live with that. Especially since most of my shotgun hunting is done in September in the first place. So long as I also carry a handgun as back-up for close off-hand shots, I think I can hunt ok with one working arm. Field-dressing and butchering with one hand would be the tough part. Trish and Ida can both help me with these tasks, and if need be I'm sure I could call Bob to come over and help with a deer. If the left arm goes well then I can have the right elbow done next spring. Trish keeps managing to veer from the monthly budget and she has been essentially pissing away my money for Munich as quickly as I put it away. This is becoming a serious problem for me. The constant drain of co-payments for physical therapy is something that I have to figure out if I'm going to get this surgery done. One is supposed to have months of PT during the recovery process, usually 3 times a week. Well, in my case I have a $20 co-payment every time, which adds up to $240 a month. I can't afford that. So I'm going to lay that right out when discussing the course of treatment with the surgeon. I am hoping that instead of formal PT, I could maybe meet with a physical therapist once a month to have my condition and progress assessed. Assuming that the PT thing can be worked out, the other caveat is going to be an agreement in advance over how to treat pain during the initial weeks of recovery. If I'm not getting some serious fucking opiates, I'm not doing it at all. The whole point of this surgery is to stop being in pain. If the pain of the surgery isn't going to be treated then I'm out. Both of my doctors (GP and orthopedist)have been complete dicks about this all year. Nobody ever wants to treat pain. They can't see it, so they sort of shrug at the problem. 10:59 a.m. - 2009-07-27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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