Monday, September 1, 2014

I'd Use My Head If It Wasn't For That Flap Of Skin Called A Neck

I'm glad I'm not one of those people who look forward to the Labor Day weekend so I can go out on my pontoon boat and do cannonballs off the top. Or hook up my speed boat so I can water-ski. Or find a resort that has one of those giant balloon thingies on the water, where a poor unsuspecting doofus can sit on that floating giant pillow while ne'er-do-well friends jump off a platform and send doofus cartwheeling into the stratosphere until the law of gravity demands to be obeyed.

Yes. I'm glad I'm an old lady who sits around doing nothing all the live-long three days. Because I have a pain in my neck. No. I didn't say I AM a pain in the neck, though many who know me might disagree. I have had a pain in my neck since I woke up on Saturday morning. You know. The start of the three-day weekend.

Of course I blame my blood-thinner medication. He's a tricky one. You never know what side effect he's going to exhibit each day. I've just come off two weeks of knee pain so severe it kept me awake at night. Before that, it was back pain. Intermittently, it's various joints, most recently the tiny end joint in the ring finger of my left hand. Prior joints involved the right elbow, the left hip, and alternating wrists. I assure you, it's not in my head. When I took myself off that dastardly triangular pill for three days, those aches vanished. Yes, I am scheduling a doctor's appointment.

Anyhoo...this pain in my neck most likely kicked off when I took my mom bill-paying Friday afternoon. My neck had been stiff for a while, what with this medicine and all. I had to turn around like an owl to see traffic before pulling out from a side street by the greenhouse outlet across from the Mexican restaurant on my way to the bank. I fell a bit of pain then, even down into my chest area between the breastesses when I turned. The next morning, the pain was like an ice pick stuck in the left side where the neck meets the head.

You might recall that I cannot take aspirin or ibuprofen or any of their derivatives, due to the blood-thinner. The blood-thinner which is exacerbating my pain to begin with. Only lowly acetaminophen. Which does less than Mrs. Hillbilly Mom on a holiday weekend.

This morning the pain was manageable. I put on my travel neck vibrator thingy with the heat setting. My neck loosened up a bit. Until I got caught up doing laundry and washing dishes and patting out hamburgers and brewing a pot of baked beans.

Right now, I'm wearing it like a neck brace.

3 comments:

Kathy's Klothesline said...

It has been many years, but I don't remember random pains when I was on a blood thinner. Just sneezing blood on my bathroom mirror and having to clean it up. Maybe your dosage should be adjusted?

Sioux Roslawski said...

Perhaps you will need to call in sick on Tuesday?

I'm a PITA, but you're saying that some consider you a PITN? I'm sure that is NOT true.

Hillbilly Mom said...

Kathy,
This is the new Cadillac of blood-thinners, Xarelto. It has a laundry list of side effects, and a class action lawsuit already in progress. It never does the same thing to me twice.

Dosage is a standard 20mg, one size fits all, AFTER DVT and pulmonary embolisms have initially been treated with 10 days of 15mg twice a day. No monitoring, no adjusting. They just assume this is right for everybody.

I want to beg for a reduction to 15mg or 10mg, but I have a feeling I will be denied. Doesn't hurt to ask. I'm working on that appointment.

****
Sioux,
Not the day after a holiday! The Friday I was IN THE ER WAITING FOR MY AMBULANCE TO MOBAP, I had a message on my answering machine to make sure I brought a doctor's excuse, because the following Monday was Memorial Day.

PITN and PITA. Cus would say I'm the poster gal.