Re: Happy New Year
So while I was stuck in the hospital bed for two weeks, I wrote and rewrote this post in my head several times. Don't remember any of it now, so here's the newest version.
THE NEVER-ENDING STORY...
The Missing Chapter: when I was discharged from the hospital back in January, I was sent home with a Foley catheter, which was more of an annoyance and handicap for my home rehab at the time. Managed to get an appointment with the VA urologist two weeks later. He thought I should never have been sent home with it, but it was time to get it removed. Took a week of scheduling shuffles but finally went home without it on the following Thursday.
That Friday night when getting ready for bed, I lost my balance while setting something on the floor and fell over on my back onto the concrete floor. My housemate helped me get up and everything seemed fine once I was back out in the recliner. Nope. Come Saturday, I was in excruciating pain across all the muscles in my chest and back. Doan's, Aleve, Tylenol didn't help at all. Monday added a heating pad... better. Wednesday, switched to BenGay... better, but still couldn't sleep, so Thursday went back to the VA for some stronger pain meds.
That doctor saw the previous records and thought I might be having a pulmonary embolism and immediately did an ambulance transfer to the ER. 6 hours later the ER doctor decided that wasn't the case and sent me home with vicadin. Didn't do anything but pharmacy was closed so had to wait till the next day to get more.
After that, everything was fine for a few hours. Mid-afternoon, I suddenly couldn't move my legs!
EMT/PD shortly had me back in the ER. MRI of head and neck revealed a tumor in my C2 vertebra. Had spinal surgery next morning! Being the weekend, it took 4 days to get the pathology back which identified it as prostate cancer. Caught it early and getting chemo, and now in rehab to walk again.
Other than that, I'm in great health (for my age)! Probably 4-6 weeks in rehab before I go home.