Month: October 2010

Dungow-dash

Today was kind of a bust as a vacation day, and pretty much what I expected from my doctor’s appointment. It went well enough, and it’s always good to get a medical opinion that isn’t a faceless internet site, but not much has changed except their office reception area.

I have a scrip for a new MRI — and won’t that be fun? — which, after a little light insurance authorization at their end, I should be able to schedule early next week. Hopefully that means I can get back to my spine doctor, to figure out if it’s the disc or he wants to send me to someone else, before the end of October. I should be more than fine until then; it’s less dealing with the mild (if persistent) discomfort that bothers me, and more the uncertainty and possible need to take more days off.

We’ll see. Nothing I can do about it until Monday.

The Forgotten English word for today is “dungow-dash,” meaning:

When the clouds threaten hail or rain it is said, “There is a deal of dungow-dash to come down.” From dung, filth.

That according to an 1826 Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire — and if that’s not an authoritative source, I don’t know what is. It rained a little here today, though hardly enough to start resorting to nineteenth-century Cheshire slang. (Although I understand that in some wilds of the world it actually snowed!) It was chill and windy here more than anything — windy enough to knock out the power, first at the doctor’s office for a moment, and then again while I was on my way home. Which meant that when I got home — with a few groceries in tow, I should add — I couldn’t get in the house. I only had keys for the side door, which is inside the garage, whose door is electrically operated. I walked around the house for ten or fifteen minutes, contemplating both melting ice cream and breaking windows, and accidentally making enough noise to bother the dog, who was safe inside the kitchen I couldn’t get to. Luckily the power came back on before long, and none of the groceries were ruined beyond salvage. And I didn’t have to wait several hours for one of my parents to return home…or go about the clumsy process of breaking into my own house.

Anyway, that was Friday. Not a particularly exciting day — I slept pretty late, had a chicken sandwich for lunch, went to the doctor — but at least not a filth-falling-from-the-sky kind of day.

Random 10 10-15

Not many guessed last week. Let’s see how you fare this week:

  1. “Uptown Girl” by Billy Joel, guessed by Clayton
    I bet her mama never told her why
  2. “Archie & Veronica” by Lovage
    I look funny all dressed in black
  3. “Haunted” by Shane McGowan & the Popes (feat. Sinead O’Connor), guessed by Chris McLaren
    You were so cool you could have put out Vietnam
  4. “I Hate Myself for Loving You” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, guessed by Kim
    Hey, Jack, it’s a fact they’re talkin’ in town
  5. “Fever” by Neko Case
    To the spiders and the lumber and the dust of his conquests
  6. “Fallin’ & Flyin'” by Jeff Bridges, guessed by Kim
    But lately I just lost the fight
  7. “Cleveland Rocks” by Ian Hunter, guessed by Kim
    All this energy callin’ me back where it comes from
  8. “Geek USA” by Smashing Pumpkins
    Cast into the world with apple eyes
  9. “Hands Are Tied” by Gin Blossoms
    The whole damn thing isn’t what I want
  10. “Secure Yourself” by Indigo Girls, guessed by Nyssa23
    Hearts and bones from days of youth

Good luck!

Thursday is my Friday

I’m very happy to be off from work tomorrow, but I do wish it was for something more fun than a doctor’s appointment. My original plan, weeks ago, was to be off next Friday, just one in several long weekends planned for the rest of the year. I have vacation time I need to burn up before January. But then the whole thing with my back and the radiating discomfort it can cause started up again in earnest, and I made an appointment with my spine doctor. I’m worried that not much will come of tomorrow’s appointment, that I’ll tell him my symptoms and, at best, he’ll be able to say how likely it is they’re being caused by the herniated disc. There’s actually little of what I’d classify as “back pain;” for me, the problem have almost always been when the disc pinches the surrounding nerves and causes weird and unfortunate symptoms. Symptoms that in this case, I must say, could be indicative of other, unrelated problems. (Although the other symptoms that would usually accompany those problems so far haven’t, as far as I’ve noticed.)

I don’t think he’ll be able to tell me anything with conviction, however, without a new MRI. I’m not a fan of that procedure, at all, but if it’s necessary of course I’ll do it. But I do worry about how long I’ll have to wait for that appointment, plus the follow-up with the spine doctor to discuss the scan, plus any follow-up I might then need for treatment. And that’s leaving aside, for the moment, the very real possibility that treatment will involve — or even be limited to — surgical options. Or that the MRI will suggest that nothing has changed, that the disc doesn’t seem to be causing my new symptoms, and I’ll be back to square one.

I think I’d be less worried if I knew that tomorrow’s appointment would probably offer me some kind of battle plan — maybe a potentially dangerous and last-resort kind of plan (like spinal surgery), but a plan nonetheless. But I suspect it will come down to just, “well, let’s see what the MRI says,” and that will push me into next week, and probably even further than that, before we get anything like answers or relief.

And, of course, I’ll have to schedule vacation time (and/or my few remaining sick days) around a string of follow-up appointments. It’s got to be done, especially if this is potentially more serious than some intermittent (if persistent) discomfort, but I’d be lying if I said the whole thing didn’t make me nervous and worried.

I like my spine doctor, even though I haven’t seen him in about a year and a half, so I’m going to try to be optimistic about tomorrow afternoon’s appointment.

And hey, at least it means I get to sleep in late tomorrow. That’s something, right?