I made my first visit to the physical therapy guy today, and he pushed and prodded and pulled and said that what’s really causing the pain is tight quadriceps muscles. Almost the first thing he said was to stop crossing my legs. I’ve done it both ways for years: ankle on knee or knee over …
I saw the doctor on Thursday afternoon, February 7. He watched me bend my knee (very good range of motion when seated) and said “it looks like arthritis. Let’s x-ray it. I’ll also prescribe some ointment and a painkiller.” So we did. I picked up the prescriptions (a very fragrant mentholated cream and some 15mg …
Long about Tuesday or Wednesday of last week (so, January 29 or 30), I started feeling pain in my right thigh from knee to hip. I didn’t get hit by a car, I didn’t walk into a table, I didn’t “sleep funny.” It has gotten progressively worse, so on Monday I called my VA doctor’s …
I started out this morning with an eye exam. Somehow I’m seeing slightly better than last time, which is a bit startling. I’ve got a new pair of glasses and frames coming in the mail within the next month. Once I was done with that I went down one floor at the VA Clinic to …
Last Friday I went up to Tripler for a PET/CT scan. The doc wanted a good view of my lungs. I’d had one done in June after my COPD hospitalization in May, and he wanted to check something he’d seen there. I went back today for a follow-up, and whatever it was has gone away …
I’m pretty much recovered. Say I’m about 85% back to normal. I’m using the same four-times-a-day inhaler I was using before I went into the hospital plus two others twice a day, but I’ve not used any oxygen since last Saturday, and that was just for a few minutes. I get winded after a little …
I smoked from the age of 17 until the age of 61, and I didn’t go lightly on the number of cigarettes per day for many of those 44 years. They gave me two cancerous tumors within 6 months of one another in 2012. Both were removed and there’s been no recurrence. The other thing …
Back in May I noted that it had been just short of five years since my first oral surgery in 2012. On Wednesday, November 1, it was 19 days short of five years since the second oral surgery. I’d had a sharp pain in my mouth in mid-October and called to make an appointment with …
For the past two or three months I’ve had upper-arm or shoulder pain in my left arm, and I finally got around to making an appointment to see my doctor about it. All praise to the VA; I called and was transferred to the advice nurse when the original scheduler heard my problem. He said …
I had what the ENT doctors are referring to as my next-to-last checkup with them today. They cut out my uvula on July 11, 2012, and I’ve been back to them regularly since then. At first it was bi-monthly, then quarterly, and most recently bi-annually. First they do an exam with tongue depressors and a …