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Saturday, September 28, 2013

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

--Anatole France--

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A little over three weeks ago my back went out.  It's sort of ok now, finally, a bit touchy in the mornings, warning signals not to get fancy, ok by afternoon, but three weeks ago, for more than a week, I was hobbling around all bent over, with a walking stick to pull me upright, wearing the brace, afraid to carry a cup of tea from counter to table.

I've had that almost all my life.  It's a birth defect exacerbated by repeated trauma.  It's been worse.

Things are more complicated now, though.  The urologist I fired last January seemed to think I was careening headlong into full kidney failure.  He was so full of crap on so many other things I decided not to believe that, either.  But, uh, what if he was right for once?

It scares me a little that I can't tell the difference between pain in the kidneys and nerve pain from my lower back.  Actually, there IS no difference, since it's the same set of nerves screaming.  And there is such a thing as being in too much pain to go to the doctor, especially when there's a high probability it is just the pinched nerve and there's nothing they can do for it, except put me through more useless pain figuring that out.

I guess the only way I can be sure I'm not dying is that ... I'm getting better.
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