As I have blogged in past blogs, I have had some seriously painful bouts with my neck this past year. The very first one was last January and it was by far the worst one of all of them... Well, my last one to date was the week before Christmas. But, there is a twist...(drum roll please?)... THIS time I endured the numb hand syndrome! What is that, you ask? Well... about two years ago... before Mike and I were engaged, I went through a LONG period of time where in the wee hours of the night both of my hands would completely go to "sleep" or become fully numb and then the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my entire life would wake me up from a DEAD sleep and I would spend FOREVER trying to wake up my hands and fingers to make the pain stop. Sometimes going as far as throwing my arm off the side of the bed to make the blood drain down into my hand or standing up seeking the same result. It was awful! This went on for several months (yes, MONTHS, not weeks) before I finally went to the doctor. You see, back then I did not really have a GP or Family Doctor being single and healthy... I hardly ever went to the doctor. I never got sick too often and the only issue I had then was just allergies. Well I found a doctor in Atlanta (near where I lived then) and made an appointment. He did some in-office tests and basically concluded that I had some issues with the nerves running into my hands from my neck. He did ask me about my daily routine at work... one particular task of interest was the fact that I sat at one of those L-shaped desks then and used my laptop right on bend of the middle and my arms would rest on the desk and not "hang" off the desk like a "normal" square desk. He then prescribed some SERIOUS anti-inflammatory pills and I changed my desk/laptop habits and within a couple of weeks or so the problem went away...
Well now the hand problem is back along with the the whole neck pain and stiffness issue... I have taken an array of mild-to-moderate muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories and pain killers (prescribed by my current doctor)over the past year and now I am at my wit's end. After having that Demoral shot given to me right before Christmas I decided that enough is enough. I went back to the doctor and complained. So today I had my first MRI...
And what an experience it was... OMG... that was probably the worst hour of my entire life! First, they put you into that tube contraption laying down flat. Let me just say that if I was an inch wider I would not have fit into it and you could not move AT ALL. They give you ear plugs and tell you that they are used because the test is kinda loud. Loud? Did you say LOUD? Because after suffering through that 35-40 minutes of living hell, I do not think that "loud" describes the torture that I endured this afternoon in that freaking tube!!!! I am surprised that I am not permanently deaf on some level after that! The noise radiating from that contraption while I was stuck inside of it was so loud that my skin was actually vibrating! And after the first 20 minutes of vibrating, then the itching started. Well, unfortunately, you cannot scratch any itches while trapped in the dead man position in a tube and remain still so as not to screw up the said "loud" radio-waves reverberating through my neck and head... I could have cried. I could not hardly open my eyes because I would get sea-sick.. It was like my body wanted to go to sleep after laying there so long, but the crashing and banging coming from that machine just wouldn't stop...
I was so happy when the ordeal was finally over and I was quite woozy when I stood up from the bench that I had been lying on for so long. I left as quickly as I could and was thinking to myself as I drove out of the parking lot how much I hope that I never have to go through that again!
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