Intro & Questions

[Guest guest]

Hi,

I won't bore you with long intro but the bottom line is I have been

home since 10/02 and unable to work to this date.

I am a 42 year old single mother of three children, son 18 who

graduates in three weeks!, daughter 14 and daughter 10 plus a fish

bubbles, 2 keets and a cockatiel named Milo.

I had a herniated disk on L5-S1 with severe pain and was operated on

eight months later. After surgery things went downhill and I have

suffered with a numb left foot and leg (as a result of surgery), pain

in both hips, numb tips of my right foot, very painfull left butt and

it isn't getting better at all. Bottom line is I have permanent

nerve damage due to the surgery. I have had two bouts with physical

therapy that made everything worse and two sets of injections, one

set before surgery and they only did two injections and quit. The

second one I just finished was a set of two shots each (3) visits and

they didn't do anything except make me feel I have a shield over my

left butt cheek.

I am on seven different meds and in Therapy with a great Psych for

Chronic Pain/Depression/Anxiety to help me get a hold of this

situation and deal with my future. Due to depression and money

issues now I have isolated myself from society and friends so I must

start over and it isn't easy in the least.

I now have an appointment tomorrow with Pain Management who is a

great doctor since he was the only one that was honest with me and

did the testing to discover what was wrong with me. I have not seen

him since the shots.

I am not sure what kind of questions to ask and what types of help

aids I can ask for. I use a cane and large heat pad but are there

other things I can ask for to help me? I need a type of seat cushion

and a tub handle cause I couldn't get out of it if I tried. I am

hesitant to go thru another bout of physical therapy.

Any help by tomorrow would help me so I can write down what kind of

questions to ask and products to ask for, it is a work injury so he

has to write prescriptions for everything.

Hope this isn't too long!

thanks so much,

BG