Fudge

Fudge. It’s what my brain feels like as I try to juggle the various drugs that keep me mobile every day. Sometimes lately it’s like walking through thick mud trying to find two sensible thoughts to put together.

The one thing I have missed since moving back to New York is the sessions I had been having with a wonderful doctor who was a “physiatrist”. I wasn’t sure what that was but when you are in pain all the time, any new possibility is worth trying out.

Dr West is an extremely skilled, intuitive man. His sessions involved having him assess my physical condition, meaning the way I stand and walk. He would check the way my shoulders sat, how tight they were, and how my hips moved when I walked, things like that and then he would sit me on his table and proceed to “re-set” my alignment by moving me gently this way and that. I felt a bit like a rubik’s cube!

Probably not the best explanation, but it was very effective, loosened me up so I felt much better for a few days. My insurance would only pay for one-a-month sessions, but you take what you can.

So I was looking for a Dr West replacement but came up against unexpected but I suppose quite reasonable precautionary screening requirements. I have a multi-level spinal fusion that has seemed to raise a few eyebrows lately, so the physician here requires updated screening before they will touch me.

In the meantime I was offered medication for nerve damage and initially I felt like a new person. It really helps. But then the side effects…..

Brain FUDGE and headaches…

So I am juggling.

In the meantime, I am considering whether to share, in stages, because it’s rather long, a story I wrote called “Camping 101”, of an ill-advised trip I took in 1980….