Sun 3 Apr 2011
It’s been seven days now– I went to the ER a week ago today — and I’m getting around the house, but only with the aid of a walker. I couldn’t do without it, and I still can’t get upstairs to my own computer.
After a burst of optimism at the beginning, I’ve had to realize that the healing process isn’t going to be as smooth and easy as I’d hoped. As many of you warned me earlier, it’s going to slow, uneven and far from easy. They gave me enough pain pills for three weeks. I guess they knew what they were doing.
I’ll be back to regular blogging as soon as I can. In the meantime, I’m doing some reading that I’ve haven’t taken the time to do in a while, but so far, other than watching UConn basketball games, both men and women, not too much TV.
And as a PS to David Vineyard, that was good advice you gave me. I’m trying not to sneeze.
April 3rd, 2011 at 4:41 pm
Dear Steve ,
if this is something like lumbago, the best bet would be a very good physiotherapist. But you seem to be in good care anyway, by medical pros ,so patience is the (boring) name of the game for the moment.
HEALING VOODOO from far away,
TheDoc
April 3rd, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Steve,
Please take it easy!
You will be feeling better before you know it.
Reading is great fun.
Also soothing: watching old episodes of CHEYENNE. Something about watching Clint Walker be a Good Guy seems relaxing!
Mike
April 3rd, 2011 at 5:46 pm
The hardest thing to find when sick is patience. When I got sick in 03, I refused to stop working. I once had my boss order me to go home because she didn’t want to have to explain the dead body in her back room (I was receiving clerk/book buyer at Tower Records in Los Angeles). It took three mini strokes to prove to me the body is boss at times and you are wise to obey.
Enjoy your “vacation”. We will happy wait as long as necessary for a healthy return of our leader. And I have this site on my RSS feed so no chance of sneaking in without me knowing it.
April 3rd, 2011 at 6:04 pm
I’ve found out the only good thing about being sick and laid up in bed is the extra time to read. Also don’t forget the baseball season has now started.
April 3rd, 2011 at 7:20 pm
The sneeze warning is from personal experience. Talk about a shock to the system.
How it works is just suddenly you notice you aren’t in pain. No great bursts of relief or anything, just suddenly you aren’t hurting and have thought about it for a while.
I hope you handle the walker better than my Mother, she tended to pick it up and carry it around. I made do with a couple of walking sticks, but will eventually end up on the walker — and probably pick it up and carry it around.
Since yours is a muscle and not the spine it is probably not as important or as potentially painful, but you might want to be sure you stay regular as well. Neither extreme of that condition is one you want to experience in this shape. That one is from personal experience too.
Much worse than sneezing. Thank heaven for mineral water. I only warn you of these because the doctors let me discover these little secrets on my own.
But hard as it is to believe, at some point it just won’t hurt that much or you will discover you’ve gone hours without thinking about it, or even just wake up and start out of bed and realize you aren’t moving as if you were made out of fine crystal.
It really should come with a fanfare or something, but it doesn’t, and its funny, because the pain is so intense it is the only thing you can think of, but the absence of it is a bit like eating cotton candy. You know you’ve eaten something, but you can’t really prove it.
My grandfather had a slight spell of this many years ago (he was an oilman, so in his case the amount of money in the wallet may actually have been a contributing factor) and was in bed at our house for about six weeks. I remember it fairly vividly because a friend of his in the business traveled with a full grown African lioness in the back of his station wagon and the neighbors were a little upset when he came by to visit.
In any case he recovered completely and never had another spell that I knew of. But to be completely honest I think that was the hip he carried the flask on and not the wallet.
Nothing you want to confess is there?
Get well, read, watch television, and play it up — soon enough it will be time to mow the lawn, and your wife’s patience with your pain will be running thin even if she is a saint.
Meanwhile, while my sympathy is with you, some of it is with her too — I know what I was like to live around in that condition.
April 3rd, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Steve, you will get much better eventually. (Soon, I hope…)
Please don’t rush things through understandable impatience.
April 4th, 2011 at 7:12 am
Take it easy, read a lot, and don’t worry about the blog. It’ll be around when you get back.
April 4th, 2011 at 11:12 am
I agree with Walker and with Bill and well. Relax, read, watch baseball and take care of yourself. The website and readers will understand your convalescence.
We’ll miss you at Windy City Steve, assuming you are still laid up in ten days.
April 4th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
The last time I was really laid up (with pneumonia) I listened to a lot of Old Time Radio episodes of Sherlock Holmes with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce and reread all the Charlie Chan books. You might be able to swap the walker for two canes — wasn’t it Gideon Fell who used two of them? Wishing you all the best.
April 4th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Both myself and the wife have been laid up at different times, so I know the ropes. Time to do a lot of reading/listening/watching etc. If you get any complaints, then you simply look aggrieved and say—“Don’t you realise…I’M ILL!”
April 5th, 2011 at 12:24 am
Sorry to read it’s slow going, but I hope your taking what pleasures you can while awaiting the mending…yeah, sneezing when you have back pain is Indeed insult atop injury.
April 5th, 2011 at 1:02 am
Did you ever finish Sinister Cargo, Steve? I was inspired buy that Time review article to buy the complete works of S.H. Page (five books). Haven’t read yet though!
Right now I’m rereading a Connington and some Ellery Queen and Austin Freeman. I will send you some reviews but of course I know you need your recuperation time.
I’ve been on stuff for CADS the last ten days, so have had that outlet for my extended genre musings!
April 5th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
My fall while I was walking the dog and the relatively minor if bloody and painful injuries that resulted pale in comparison with your ordeal. At least, I know what caused my fall: a momentary distraction on a sidewalk badly damaged by winter weather tripped me up. I assume you (and the doctors) are still wondering what caused the spasm.
I hope you’ll recover in time for Windy City, and, even more to the point, for Pulpfest, where I look forward to finding you fully recovered and ever ready to restrain me from ill-considered purchases.
April 5th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Even though I’m all signed up for Windy City and have flight reservations, chances that I’ll be able to go are getting rather slim. Right now the problem is more that of sciatica, and sitting in a plane for three hours just isn’t going to help. And if something goes wrong, Chicago’s a long way from home.
Sorry to hear of your fall, Walter. Get better soon. You’re right. I sure don’t want to miss Pulpfest too, but me restraining you is like squirting lighter fluid to the fire.
Curt
Yipes. I never did finish that book by Stanley Hart Page. I lost track of what I was reading when all this started and thanks for the reminder. I think I know where it is and kind of where I left off, but I have a feeling that I might have to start over, when I get back to it. It starts out like a conventional S. S. Van Dine novel, but changes abruptly to a underworld story, with gangsters and funky hideouts scattered all over town.
David
Luckily the folks here warned me several times over about the side effects of the medications I’m taking, suggesting stool softeners, cereals with lots of fiber and so on. Damned good advice. Even though I’m a mathematician by trade (in my former life) working things out with a pencil is a tough way to go, even as a last resort.
And as for the walker, yes, I’m keeping it close at hand, but it’s a low cost model without all of the luxury features, so it’s awkward and clumsy, and I’m nearing the point that I’m folding it up and rolling it (or even carrying it, while holding onto furniture) as much as I’m actually pushing it, especially through narrow passages. And how many people set up their furniture so duffers with walkers can get through?
Cheers to everyone. Getting older isn’t always as much fun as it might be, but what choice do we have?
April 5th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Steve
Well, there is a choice, just not a very good one.
Ah, the good old sciatic nerve. It can shoot pain anywhere south all the way to your big toe and it’s chronic too. Sort of like playing Russian roulette with six rounds in the chambers.
At least your doctor warned you. Mine let me find out the hard (no painful puns intended) way (surgeons have the bedside manner of truck drivers — and that’s being unfair to truck drivers — or as a GP once told me “They’re all ___________’s, but at least some of them know they are __________’s.”).
Pain meds, inactivity, and change in diet because you don’t feel like eating — and you know where that leads.
As I said earlier though, one day the pain just stops. Well, that or your heart, but usually it’s the pain.
I much prefer canes or crutches to walkers — I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who really got used to them — and the ones with all the bells and whistles just tip over easier. What you need is one of those hopped up motorized chairs — come to think of it I wouldn’t mind having one when nothing is wrong.
Rest, relax (though with pain at the very center of your nerves that’s easier to say than do) and try and think of England. I don’t know what that does, but they used to say it to brides on their wedding night, so it must be some help. Me, I always end up thinking of New Jersey.
April 5th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Life seems filled with things like this now. At the moment, I have a sprained ankle, some sort of eye allergy (I hope) and $10,000 worth of dental work underway. (No joke). Everyone I know seems to have even worse problems.
Hope things improve quickly. It’s tough some days.
April 6th, 2011 at 11:20 am
It would be a shame if you miss out on Windy City, Steve. I was planning on going for a single day on Saturday. Would have liked to have met up with you. But seeing how it’s slow healing perhaps some other time.
Take care,
John
April 6th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Patti
Sorry to hear of your woes too. Get better soon. As for the dental work, that’s a lot of money you’re working with there. Best of luck with the results!
John
I’d forgotten you live in the Chicago area. By all means go anyway, even if I don’t make it. Some dealers bring mystery fiction, more paperback than hardcover of course, but whether you love pulps or are just learning about them — speaking to everyone reading this too — you’ll have a great time there, even if you’re only looking!
Hard core medical stuff:
I really have no idea if anyone is interested in this or not, but my chiropractor says that in 15 to 20% of everyone, the sciatic nerve goes down through the piriformis muscle, which is where this all started with me. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.
All joking aside, please believe me. In comparison with so many people with even worse problems, as Patti mentioned, I am not complaining. I am getting better. There are too many people in this country and this world who aren’t and won’t.
Once again, thank you all and my best wishes to everyone.
— Steve
April 7th, 2011 at 10:45 am
You know, Steve, I check this blog fairly regularly, but have been doing so every day on the chance there would be good news like this that you are improving. Great! Hope next week things look even better.
April 8th, 2011 at 6:40 am
Wow – we go away for a week (to London) and this happens. Sorry to hear you are suffering Steve, and hope you’re back to normal soon. I agree about not wanting to be sitting on a plane with any kind of muscle pain. Your health is #1 and everything else is #2 or lower.