medical testing - ugh

[kappydell]

Oh joy.  I went to the neurologist on advice of my doc...."I don't like your gait".....as a consult to see if I could do anything else about my back.  I walk hunched over quite a bit.   The PT she sends me to seems to help, but I still tire quickly, then down I go.  So...I took my x-rays and my ct scan films to the neuro folks (40 miles away).  They looked & told me I had an awful back.  Discs degenerated to almost nothing, vertebra slipping all over the place, and 'rotary' scoliosis (didn't even know there was such a thing!).  Now they want MRIs.  40 miles away, again.  (At least they did not demand I drive in Atlanta....NOBODY in GA drives there unless have no choice.)  UGH.  So now I am researching all those back things and various treatments - so I have info and can ask sensible questions.  I do not intent to go the injection route (don't need steroids or other stressors causing a cancer return) and spinal surgery does not impress me with its prognosis.  So into 'research mode' I go.  I need to be armed with data.  

[Twilight]

Kappy I had mild rotary scoliosis.

I do not know what my hip surgeon did but there has been a big change in my back.

The plan was to do an anterior surgery but my research says with scoliosis a posterior surgery is necessary. So I guess they saw that on the table. Mine was an emergency surgery after a very bad fall.

[Jeepers]

I've never heard of that either.  Keep us updated. Lots of us with back issues may need to know these things too.

[kappydell]

Well I got my MRI - I was totally surprised, it was unpleasant, but they really had ways to combat many of the issues with the mri - earplugs for the noise, a decent leg support (as opposed to pillows, which tend to slip and slide and flatten halfway thru the test), and (my favorite) a fan to blow a cool breeze thru the mri tube (it gets HOT in there).  I wouldn't call it a pleasant test, but it was not terrible, either.  I could tolerate it for the 30 min it took for the two scans.  Surprise!  

 

Surprise #2 - when they gave me my disc with the mri images on it, my computer can actually read it and display the pics!  Now I can take my time looking at the actual films, instead of getting only a glimpse from the doc.  Hoooray!  

 

Surprise #3 - it looks like I fractured a sacral vertebra when I landed on my posterior (the incident that started the spinal issues).  No wonder everything hurts when I move wrong...or too much...or too long...etc, etc, etc.  So on Tues I will call the neuro folks back & ask when they want me back again.

Heck, if they keep me going into Macon I might even stop getting lost!

 

[Mt_Rider]

Glad you got thru the testing.  MRI is ...not pleasant but at least it doesn't hurt...unless you get uncomfortable holding still.

 

MtRider    for plans for pain improvement

[kappydell]

I was glad to see my 'new" (assigned) insurance company from my job includes Chiropractic care.  Ya-Hoo!!!!  That is what has worked best so far for pain and posture improvement.  AND I can get back on the "silver sneakers" free healthclub/gym program, too.  Whoopie!  or as my newest football cheer goes....Wee-Oooo, Wee-Oooo, Wee-Oooo (chanted like a siren in a European cop car while pumping fists alternately overheat in rhythm. ) I tell ya, its catching on around here, but then again,  we are easily entertained!

Edited October 3, 2018 by kappydell

[kappydell]

Went to see my neurologist today.  He looked at my MRI discs & said "More tests!"  MRIs with contrast this time.  He says back is reeeeeealy bad.  (No s**t, Sherlock!)

[Ambergris]

The stray cat that bit me has another five days of quarantine.  I have declined to take the rabies shots until I see what happens with him.  Rabies has an incubation period of at least three weeks, so I have until then to get treatment.

I spoke to my doctor's office, and they did not seem hyper-concerned.  Surprisingly casual, actually.  Told me to watch for infection and come in if I see any signs.

[Mt_Rider]

RABIES?!?!  That word still FREAKS me!!!  3rd grade.  LOTS of shots in stomach with HUGE needles! 

 

Oh...sorry.  My phobia.  NOT as many shots now.  AND yes...you are wise to wait out the cat tests.  Good thing you were ABLE to catch the cat.  Our farm cat tested completely positive...as suspected.  Hope yours was just a wild stray??????   

 

How did you get bit.....was it aggressive?  Or was it simply cornered?  Aggressive would be a rabies indicator.  Our cat was actually foaming at mouth....but many folks were ignorant of such things in those days.  Until it happens to you. 

 

Keep us posted

MtRider  

[Jeepers]

Oh my Ambergris. I didn't know you had been bitten. I'm sorry that happened to you! Keep us informed please.

[Ambergris]

There was a stray.  He has been getting thinner, and has been getting increasingly aggressive to my cats and to the barn cats that came with the place.  He hissed so much I thought it might be nervous/anxious hissing like my brain damaged kitty does.  So I reached out and let him sniff me.  He was transported with delight, purring up a storm as I scratched the top of his head and under his chin.  I sat down and was looking out over the yard, trying to prioritize cleanup, and he flopped down beside me.  Just companionable, you know?  Then  he whipped around and bit my leg, just out of nowhere. 

I went inside and my cat moaned through the storm door at the stray, who charged the door headfirst, bounced off, and charged/bounced again.  I looked down and didn't see any blood, so I was ready to forget it, but then just a bit of blood started oozing.  So I cleaned it and put on a drawing salve, and set out a trap with canned food.  Took two nights to catch him--he clearly knows a trap.  But he took the bait, and the next day I took him to the pound.  He had a seizure on the way, poor thing.  But he charmed the lady who checked him for a microchip.  We talked about the  possibility he just has a bad tooth or something, so that the pain sometimes overcomes him.  Between bouts, he's a lovey.  So he got signed up for a ten-day quarantine instead of a postmortem brain examination.

[Jeepers]

Poor thing. Sounds like he has medical and emotional issues. 

[Mt_Rider]

19 hours ago, Ambergris said:

So he got signed up for a ten-day quarantine instead of a postmortem brain examination.

 

I wondered about that.  In our case long ago....the vet [who also got bit] transported the brain himself to a University hospital several hours away, for immediate testing.  Vet also had to have twenty-something shots and it was his second time.  He had some nerve damage to one arm even with.... {or because of???} ....the nerve toxin shots.  It's much improved now tho.....decades later.

 

That would certainly be unexpected for a 'lovey' to turn psychotic suddenly.    Well, praying he's not a carrier of anything bad!  .....cuz the rest of your animals would then be suspect.  But by then there would have already been 10 days since last contact for them too.

 

MtRider ....we'll wait anxiously with you!!   

[Ambergris]

No call yet.  No news is good news.

My animals are all up on their shots, which increases their safety margin drastically.

Friend of mine was bitten by a bat, and had to have the shots because she went psycho on the bat and damaged its brain too much to permit testing.

[Mt_Rider]

2 hours ago, Ambergris said:

went psycho on the bat and damaged its brain too much to permit testing.

    oops!

 

Yeah....our cabin is not very tight.  One nite cat is looking up chasing something in the air.  I hear the familiar soft whap...whap of bat.  Baby bat came in thru crack in chimney chinking.  Long ...looong story short, picture me at 3AM standing on kitchen counter to level out the angle of the low powered BB rifle.  Pinging metal BBs all over.  Cuz the dumb thing wedged itself so tightly in crack where ridge log meets ceiling boards.  I coulda sworn I'd hit it several times but...it didn't fall down.  Finally engineered enough to get me UP high enough and suck the thing into a shop vac.  Capped the hole and left on porch till morning.  It WAS dead.  No one bit; no one needed it to be tested. 

Different year...a woman near here had a bat attach to her ankle and it tested positive. 

ICK...love bat's value for bug elimination.  But they are prone to rabies. 

Filled chimney entrance with steel wool.

 

MtRider   

[Jeepers]

[Annarchy]

55 minutes ago, Jeepers said:

That’d be me too. 

[Mt_Rider]

Nah...cuz with my history of rabies shots....I wasn't sleeping til that lil critter was dead or outside....or both, as it turned out. 

 

Back in Mpls, DH and I first married, I brought a bat down with a loose-weave sweater.  Threw it up like a net and the hooks on it's wings caught.  We released that one to a park a long way away.

 

  ....DH handled the 2nd baby bat that came thru that crack.  It went back out and thus, DH discovered/covered the hole in chinking.  Guess he didn't want to wake up 'Annie Oakley' that night. 

MtRider   

 

[kappydell]

Not to sound gross, but many years ago the hospital I worked at had occasional bat intrusions and as a security guard that became one of my miscellaneous jobs.  What worked well for us was CO2 fire extingishers (they drop to the ground, we would scoop them up with a shovel and set outside to warm up and fly away).  That got expensive though as at times we had lot of bats (they usually lived in the honeycombed ceiling of the parking ramp and bothered no one - nobody knew they were there most times).  The next best bat-repeller we found was a tennis racquet.  Swing a broom and those suckers duck - their sonar is that good - but it goes right thru the open weave of a tennis (or similar) racquet.  Bulls eye most of the time and if we timed it right and had a confederate step on the automatic door mats at the critical moment, we could just "bat" them out the open door with one swing!  They sure kept the mosquitos down.  Wish I had some here, frankly.  Maybe if I make a bat house some will come...rather have them than the plethora of snakes we seem to have around here.

 

Edited October 21, 2018 by kappydell

[Mt_Rider]

Interesting....the tennis racket vs broom.   Who figured that out?   Makes sense once you hear it.  Actually....it sounds HILARIOUS!   

 

And YES they are very good at what they're here to do.  Eat buggies.  We've always had them nesting in our chimney.  I only object (strongly) to sharing indoor space with them.  Occasionally, in the evening dusk, I've had to duck as one whaps it way thru the porch....chasing something I'll never see.  Go get 'em!  Not that any self-respecting bat would actually run into me...but they come close and  

 

 ...and we do not have many flying bugs up here.  Except miller moths and flies!  No mosquitos. We have swallows [bird] that skim the pond for bugs of an evening.  Sure have spiders, crickets, etc. 

 

MtRider  

 

[Midnightmom]

15 hours ago, Mt_Rider said:

Interesting....the tennis racket vs broom.   Who figured that out?   Makes sense once you hear it.  

 

It's the same reason a fly swatter works and not a rolled up newspaper. 'Cept in this case it's the air pressure that a fly "feels," not the sound. 

[Ambergris]

Tomorrow I get to ask about the cat.  Although they did tell me they would contact me if anything happened. I'm just getting a little anxious.

[Mt_Rider]

I'll bet you are.  No news is good news but news when it's finally over will be the best!

MtRider     ...anyone going to adopt the cat?

[kappydell]

I have heard of some cats being lovey-dovey then nipping their owners.  Supposedly overstimulation is the culprit - they can only handle so much, then have to run off or lash out.  Watch for the slow sinuous tail movement (relaxed) becoming more erratic, more like a lashing tail rather than a relaxed swing.  Then stop petting & let them jump down & go get a drink of water.

 

[Jeepers]

I've heard the same thing Kappy. I've never been around cats much so I wouldn't know a warning tail twitch from any other tail movement. Being a dog person, if the tail is happy the brain must be too. 

 

I hate when someone says they will call me if something is wrong. I want to know one way or the other. What if it's bad and they just forgot to call. I always call if they don't.