Catching up??

It is Christmas Eve and I haven’t posted since Thanksgiving though I have ha a lot of stuff that I wanted to post, i have just not had the energy.  When I was in Columbia for Thanks giving, I bought gasoline for less than three dollars a gallon for the first time in years.  I felt like I should send up a flare or something.

I came home and made a real effort to do some work in the yard, but my back wouldn’t tolerate it.  I have since had some relief, not a lot but some.

Janet has been in pain from the repairs made when she broke her leg three Christmases ago.  She has worked really hard to avoid repeating drugs but she has taken Tylenol 3, Vicodin, Tramosol, Tylonol and Tramolso together, etc. etc. and has toyed seriously (against the advise of her Cardiologist) with having new surgery to remove all the metal that was surgically put in place to repair her femur (you may recall it was broken  in three places.)

Our son Stuart is a fencing coach and he came home awhile ago and told us that one of his fencers is an acupuncturist.  He suggested that we consider it.  We thought about it for several weeks,k but after one really terrible week with almost no sleep because of the pain, she called and made an appointment (the acupuncture office is in Savanneh.)

She got approval from two of our three doctors before going, we went, and after grilling the poor acupuncturist about his training, his license his certifications, etc. she finally went in for treatment (which took over an hour.)  We left, came home and she said she thought she had some improvement, but she was convinced when she went to bed that night and slept the whole night without pain. (and without any kind of pain medication.

When we were in the office, the man had interviewed about possible treatment but I told him  that most of my problem was my neuropathy which acturally removes pain (and all feeling in my lower legs and may hands and my back in which I have no disks between my last three lumbar verterbrae and my shoulders where I have no remaining rotator cuffs.  None of those seemed to me to be in his purview.

When we went to our Cardiologist Janet hesitantly told him about the acupuncture (expecting a negative reaction) and his reply was “Oh I have acupuncture once a month because the disks in my lumbar region are gone, and I want to avoid surgery.  He was very pleased that he pain was gone.  Guess who decided to try it.\?

Last week we went to Savannah  where she was treated and I was treated.   l didn’t have the almost miraculous result that she had, but I have been able to do things this week that I haven’t been able to do for months.  I still have pain in my back when I get up in the morning, but after rocking in a rocking chair for twenty minutes or so, I can get up and move almost normally, without humping over, and constantly groaning.  My neuropathy is even improved.  I am still waiting for some improvement in my shoulders, but I can go though my daily therapy without profanity.

Will let you know how things come out.  We have another treatment scheduled for next Thursday.