Male discretion advised – details of my visit to my ob/gyn Nurse Practitioner disclosed.  No salacious details.

I have been seeing my nurse practitioner for around 20 years.  I was brought up to believe having these exams were responsible, important and natural.  One year, when I was out of work without health insurance and no money, my parents gave me my annual exam as a birthday present.

For me, the two worst parts of the exam were being weighed and the Pap smear.  I had a botched one once and bled for days.

I have followed R from her original practice to a newer one.  In this practice, she only sees patients one Saturday a month.  She has seen my  deterioration.  I don’t focus on it and have a tendency to actually forget I am less able.

I wake up Saturday morning with burning pee.  Good thing I am going to the doctor.  I ask my husband to remind me to tell them I need a test if I rush in and need to use the bathroom.  I use the walker because it will make life easier.

I tell the nurse I think I have a UTI.  No problem, we’ll get a sample.  The exam room is so small we have issues maneuvering the walker.  She leaves me with the cup and walks out.  The bathroom is not handicap friendly.  I cannot believe this as it is an ob/gyn practice and what about the big pregnant ladies?  I then go through a series of contortions to sit, hold the cup and collect the specimen without falling, dousing myself with urine, or dropping the precious sample.  Whew.  Mission accomplished.  Next removing everything including spectral leg.  Easy-peasy.  Uh oh, I forgot getting up on the table.  Problem, the step attached to the table moves. It slides in and out.  This is not happening.  Now, another thing my mother did for me is that I don’t have nudity/body issues in medical settings.  I find the whole gown thing on the annoying side.  My husband has explained to me that I must be aware of others discomfort.  Point taken.  R comes in and I show her the situation.  She wants to call for help.  I explain if we hold the step stable and maybe give my leg a boost, it will work.  Well, we did it but now she wants to add another gown for my modesty.  The good news is that I have aged out of the Pap smear.  I can’t begin to imagine how that would have worked.  She does a dip on the specimen and says you definitely have an infection.  Do you want antibiotics now or do you want to wait 48 hours so we know exactly?  NO! DRUGS NOW!  She phones it in and high fives me as I leave as we didn’t do the weighing thing and I tell her my vastly reduced weight.  I am almost 50 pounds lighter than when we first met.  I inspired people after dropping the first twenty.  I don’t really mind that kind of inspiring as opposed to the disease inspiring.

We stop to go grocery shopping on the way home.  Pharmacy is only a mile or so from the store so we ring and it will be ready in half an hour.  Fine, go home, unpack groceries, check email.  Ok, let’s go.  I try to stand up from desk and can’t straighten up and am in such excruciating pain that I scream.  Tom comes running in.  No, I have not fallen.  It’s my back.  Get me two Advil.  I creep out to the front room.  I have a very tiny house so we are talking less than 20 feet.  I sit down.  I try to stand and scream again.  My vision is going black and I am seeing stars.  Tom’s reaction?  I had a sledge hammer fall on my hand and didn’t scream.  My reaction?  If I had the f*ng sledge hammer right now, we’d see about that.

There is no way I can drive to pick up the ‘scrip.  Tom has no license.  “how come this is happening to you? You were fine this morning.”  Actually, my left leg which is the allegedly “good” one was really wobbly.  Next, as I am thinking how I can get the meds, and not move, and not cry, he announces his cellphone is broken. I tell him to charge it. It doesn’t work.  “We’ll have to go to Apple.”  Are you f*ing insane?  I am in excruciating pain, can’t get meds and you want Apple?  I text my stepson who was supposed to be away for the weekend.  Luckily, he’s home and says no problem I’ll pick up and be there within the hour. Dad gets on the phone and tells him his phone doesn’t work.  Kid laughs and says he’ll make an appointment.

I am blessed with my stepsons.  He calls from the pharmacy to confirm my birth day.  I ask him if needs the year and the pharmacist laughs.  This is good.  The kids know that I am older than their Dad but not by how much.

I can’t take the meds till evening.

I had Vicodin once for oral surgery.  Everyone laughed as I had to use them at work, and taught a class that usually gave me a headache.  I did a great class.  There were leftovers so I saved for a rainy day.  Tom had an operation afterwards and ran out.  He was supposed to replace mine.  He didn’t.  There were no painkillers in the house.  I took an extra Baclofen.  I am resourceful.  One of the kid’s friends smokes lots of weed.  He was ecstatic some years back when he went into a cabinet for a glass and found a baggy of catnip.  “Mr. and Mrs H…””Hate   to disappoint, it’s just catnip.”  Eventually, we told him he couldn’t visit us if he was stoned,  I am thinking of Meghan Llewellyn(@BBHwithMS) and her recent journeys with cannabis.  Two thoughts, if she has been dealing with pain like this, is cannabis enough?  And, was what was happening to me associated with my condition? I’ll do anything to ease this.  However, step was supposed to go out of state with his friend, so no relief there.  The last time I touched weed was in 1994, Good Friday.  Before that, 1980!  I only used it when I was drunk.  Bad combo as I don’t come off the ceiling for days.

My mother had a high tolerance for pain – childbirth was overrated, teeth drilled without Novocain.  I so do not take after her.  The pain gets worse.  I do remember stepson gave me acupuncture cushion.  A little relief.

I take the meds and it also begins to ease a little.  However, I cannot lift my left knee or bend it.  I am scuttling around the house sideways.  I can’t step over the saddles.  Tom has to help me into our  high profile bed.   I get up in the middle of the night and have rolled over.  Crisis averted.

So, this condition has seeped into my life.  And everything is not MS.  Sometimes an infection is just an infection.  Of course, the aftermath is worse.  Losing exercise is harder to regain.

It’s amazing how much we take for granted and how much something as simple as bending a knee means.  It’s a couple of days later and I am still a tad twingey but I can move my knee; I can stand up.

What happened?  I think it was the perfect storm of adjusting to the new Frankenstein spectral leg and the UTI, all exacerbated by my condition.

Plan?  I need to have access to MMJ!