Move Complete – Part 2 December 8, 2014

So once I got here, I thought everything was fine. I arrived on a Saturday evening and while people moved the RV to a safer location to park it, I kind of wandered around the new apartment, taking a look at where things had been placed and such. I actually felt pretty good?? I’m not sure what happened after that. I went to bed that night and woke up the next day sore, but not too bad. I had a big Green Bay game against the Patriots that day and don’t remember being in too much pain while I laid in bed watching it. I had to watch it on my phone because, of course, my internet did not work right off the bat. Thankfully, I have Verizon and they have a deal with the NFL that you can stream it over your phone. Needless to say, my phone bill will be big this month because I blew through my data plan. However, it was well worth it to see that game.

My point is, I don’t remember to much pain just laying there. Then, I went for a walk. That may have done it. We walked all the way around my complex. I’m not sure if it was the slight incline or if it was the length of the walk (about double what my biggest walk was in San Mateo). However, the more I have thought about it over the last few days, I’m leaning toward the walk. Either that, or the adrenaline wore off or the swelling in my body got worse after 24 hours. Pretty much that night was very painful and started a cascade of pain. I had planned only on going for a very small walk, just to poke my head outdoors, but the person I was with kind of distracted me and I kept going. Again, I never feel the pain while I am doing something, it always seems to settle in later? That’s why it is so hard for me to gauge things sometimes and why I have such a mind-fuck going on when I do something (why I’m so scared to try things). I just wanted to get an idea of where I was and such. Like and idiot though, I did it, and now I can’t tell what caused the pain.

Now it’s been just over a week since the move and I’m still doing terribly. I love to talk to my 4 year old niece over the iPad on FaceTime, and I can’t even do that. I spoke to her for about 45 minutes yesterday and spent the next two hours in bed crying. I love that little girl and it kills me that I can’t pick her up, go visit her, or kiss her. All I have is the ability to talk to her over FaceTime and now I can’t even do that. My brother offered to bring the kids out in the next few weeks, but I have to decline. If I can’t even talk to them on the iPad for 45 minutes, then I don’t think it’s such a good idea to see them.

I’m very sad over what is going on. I’m trying to keep in mind that I just undertook a big endeavor, and that recuperating will take time, but I’m just scared. Ever since I first got hurt, I just keep getting worse. Every time I have injured myself since in regards to my back, I get somewhat better, but I never return to my previous level of functioning. I hope I do this time.

This blog was made possible thanks to Godaddy coupon 149scott and some Petco coupons. I just used the Petco coupons to get a new fake-grass potty mat for a dog. It worked well. You will like the coupons.

**Madeline Fresco is a novelist who lives in San Diego. She is the author of CROSSED THE LINE, available for Kindle at Amazon.com, for Nook at Barnes & Noble, and as an ePub at other eBook retailers. You can also listen to her novel as a free, serialized audiobook at madelinefresco.com. Her second book THE CHOICE, is available on Kindle at Amazon. Her third book ANGUISH, is available for Kindle at Amazon.com

Almost move time November 26, 2014

Almost time to move. The big day is on Friday.

It’s a bit nerve wracking, to say the least. I feel like I am dead man walking – waiting and knowing of my demise. I fear this trip will make me so much worse that I won’t be able to tolerate the pain at all. I fear being worse than I am now. I fear not being able to concentrate anymore because the pain is bad. I fear not having any reprieve.

This will all be done this week though. Sunday, hopefully, will be fine. It is the day after the drive. I have my Green Bay Packers game and I hope I am able to get lost in it and deal with whatever comes my way.

Please wish me luck, I really need it. I haven’t been this scared ever in my life. I’ve had a sense of dread before, but nothing like this.

Thanks to you for reading my blog — here is a GoDaddy coupon and some Petco coupons to say thanks!

**Madeline Fresco is a novelist who lives in San Francisco. She is the author of CROSSED THE LINE, available for Kindle at Amazon.com, for Nook at Barnes & Noble, and as an ePub at other eBook retailers. You can also listen to her novel as a free, serialized audiobook at madelinefresco.com. Her second book THE CHOICE, is available on Kindle at Amazon. Her third book ANGUISH, is available for Kindle at Amazon.com

Busy week ahead of me November 11, 2014

I have quite the busy week ahead of me.

I will be moving in two weeks to sunny San Diego. I have a bit of help down there, so that will be helpful with my back. I’m terrified of getting down there, which is a whole other story.

This week will be tough as I have to pack again. That’s always hard on my back and hard on my psyche. It won’t be as bad as it was a few months back, because a lot of it is still in boxes, and was weaned from how much stuff I had before.

I have tried to break the rooms down by the day.

Tomorrow I have friends coming over to help me pack my clothes. That will be the hardest. I feel like I need to wean through the clothes again because I haven’t seen the apartment I am moving to and I don’t know how much will fit. I can’t do any of the packing myself so it will have to be pretty much straight forward. It will be a quick go or stay. If I can at least wean throw 1/4 of it, that will be good. Plus, it will save me the space and I can put other things in its place.

Wednesday I have a friend coming over and she will help me pack my kitchen, plus all my documents for MetLife and Social Security. That has me a bit nervous, because if I need that stuff, it won’t be with me. As for dishes and stuff, again … weaning. I will wean it down to the bare minimums. I just don’t want to have to pack that stuff again some day.

Thursday will be lose ends. Pretty much anything we didn’t get done the last two days. I have some stretching blocks, my dvds, and remotes and such. Just kind of random stuff.

Then on Saturday will be my bathroom stuff. I will be going au naturel for the next week or so.

That’s pretty much it. Then it will be a week and half of not much stuff. That’s okay, I don’t require much anyways.

So to summarize, just trying to break it all down to easy, manageable days so as to not overtax myself (the irony is I don’t want to overtax myself pointing at what everyone else should do — man, my life is terrible). Tomorrow will be the worst. I’m not sure how much help that group of friends will be, or if they are really even up for doing it. Last time they all just sort of sat around drinking and chatting and I was left there not wanting to be an asshole and be like “I can’t move anything myself! Please! I need help! Stop talking!”

I’ll let you know how it goes next week.

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**Madeline Fresco is a novelist who lives in San Francisco. She is the author of CROSSED THE LINE, available for Kindle at Amazon.com, for Nook at Barnes & Noble, and as an ePub at other eBook retailers. You can also listen to her novel as a free, serialized audiobook at madelinefresco.com. Her second book THE CHOICE, is available on Kindle at Amazon. Her third book ANGUISH, is available for Kindle at Amazon.com

Too much football! October 27, 2014

My back can only last for so long. I have to time my activities around my back. Usually I can do one activity per day. Also, my activity isn’t super exciting. It might be to be able to stand for half a football game, then lie down, or maybe have a friend come over for a few hours where I stand and lay throughout the visit.

As everyone knows, I love football. I have been a fan of the Green Bay Packers since 1996. My husband is a Lions fan, and we both grew up in Michigan. I only tell you this because that means the NFC North is the division that I enjoy watching the most.

Well, today was too much football. My game is the Sunday night game. I already knew that it was going to be hard to make it all the way to the Packers game without any pain. I mean, really. I always have pain. I guess what I’m trying to say is I wanted to try and make it to 5:30 pm with as much reduced pain as I could manage.

Didn’t happen.

The issue is, my day started at 8:30 in the morning with the Lions game. Who airs a game at 6:30 in the morning? I ended up watching most of that. Then, the Bears were playing against the Patriots for the 10:00 am game. Well, I had to watch that. Then, there was the Eagles and Arizona game. I really kind of wanted to keep my eye on that game as well.

Simply, just too much football.

It’s too much to have 4 games in one day. I mean, usually, I watch a game, and then keep my eye on another. This was all games I wanted to watch with their own time slot.

Too much!

Also, ugh. Stupid Detroit Lions doing the unbelievable and coming back from a 21 point deficit. On a side note, really Atlanta? You didn’t score AT ALL the second half of the game?!

That means that the Lions are still ahead in the division.

That’s annoying.

**This blog is made possible thanks to GoDaddy coupon 149scott and thanks to some Petco coupons. Feel free to start your very own blog or get some nice new toys for your doggie.

No-shows are harder when you are disabled October 15, 2014

Good job showing up, lady

I had a no-show today and while it sucks for people who are not disabled, it is so much worse when you are. I have a cleaning lady come every three weeks to help with the garbage, vacuum, and clean the bathroom.

She was supposed to come today.

Sadly, no friends came over this week, so my trash has really backed up and, lately, I have had a spider problem. So there are little spider carcasses all in my carpet. Needless to say, I really, really needed the cleaning lady to come over today.

The thing is, she didn’t show up, and she didn’t call. I had to text her to find out why she wasn’t here. The really aggravating part was she said her car broke down (which I kind of don’t believe), and that she was going to call me. The reason I don’t believe this is how do you forget to tell your clients that you can’t show up? It’s so frustrating.

It leaves me to try and scramble for someone last minute to come to the house. She can’t even come until next week. Now I have spider guts on my carpet for three weeks because I can’t get to them, and I really, really need someone to mop the remains up off my bathroom floor. It’s gross. Now I’m a gross person because my cleaning lady didn’t come over.

The thing is, when you are disabled, things aren’t niceties, they are necessities. It would nice, if I was well, to have someone clean for me. No, I need someone to clean for me or I sit in filth. If someone doesn’t show up for a person who is well, they could be irritated, but they can just as easily say fuck it, get the vacuum and clean up. They for sure would have already vacuumed up all these dead spiders.

I also was having a wonderful FaceTime conversation with my niece and I had to let her go because I thought the cleaning lady would be here at any minute. So I also had to disappoint my niece because this lady didn’t show up.

I’m just so aggravated by the situation.

How do you feel when people don’t show up? What impact does it have on you?

** Here, have a GoDaddy coupon and some Petco coupons to cheer up your day. Get your own blog for just $1.49 and rant and rave about what you want. Then buy your cute pet a nice new toy for consoling you after you get all upset today about your no-show.

Phone consultation with California Stem Cell Treatment Center May 7, 2014

I had my phone consultation on 5/1/14. The secretary called, connected me to a doctor. I’m not even sure what his actual specialty was. He talked to me for a few minutes about what my condition entailed. I then asked him if he worked with discs before. He said yes. I asked him what percentage of people were helped by the procedure. He said he didn’t know the stats right off the top of his head.

 

Right there. That’s a red flag. All of my doctors, and all of the doctors I’ve ever known over the years can tell me what their “numbers” are. Secondly, this is even more impressive that this person doesn’t know the numbers as he is essentially making a sales call. Third, this “Treatment Center” only opened in 2010. I feel like he should have some current numbers.

 

They wanted to let me know that I would either have to bring my MRI, or they would do some specialized MRI there – an MRI I have never heard of, which isn’t saying much, as my specialty was never radiology, but having had worked in spinal surgery, and having had two on my lumbar area and one on my thoracic spine, I’d probably have heard of it.

 

I asked who would do the procedure, they said an interventional radiologist. Hmm. Okay. They said they would pull my cells by doing abdominal liposuction. They then said they would give my cells to I.R., which is fine — but here is the part I’m totally not cool with. He said they would inject the remaining stem cells into my i.v. and that the cells would go to where they needed to from there.

 

Huh?

 

Sketchville if you ask me.

 

He asked if I had anymore questions, I said no. I was transferred back to the receptionist and she immediately asked for $250 to process my fee to have their team look at my MRI.

 

I said I’d have to think about it.

 

I’m not so sure about this place.

 

This blog was made possible thanks to (a new) GoDaddy coupon 199scott. It gets you a new blog for just $1.99.

This blog is also brought to you by Petsmart at http://www.scottsigler.com/petsmart-coupons.

 

Check out my main blog at http://www.madelinefresco.com. I have three novels for sale there and, when it is football season, blog about football, but manly the Packers. Draft is coming up!

Allsup consultation for 3rd review by social security May 1, 2014

Today was my scheduled phone call with my Allsup representative today. This call was done to complete my paperwork to be sent in for my third appeal with Social Security.

 

It went fairly okay. It took about an hour. I honestly think it would have took less time if I had done it myself. The good news though, was that I could lay down while she asked me all of the questions. It was pretty straightforward. In a way, kind of annoying. It was everything that I had already done. It’s been two years now. They have all this paperwork. They asked me what meds I was on, when I got hurt, when I stopped working –all stuff that they already have.

 

Some good questions they asked was how the back pain effected my. Was I able to concentrate as well as before? How does it effect my mood? Am I quicker to snapping with people? Of course! Just yesterday my Direct TV went out and I had to call support to get it fixed. The whole time my internal clock was ticking about how much time I had left before I would be completely spent. I had to cut the phone call short, and then I got short with my husband. 😦

 

The good information I got was that it would take about 11-18 months to even get a hearing! Wow! If my MetLife runs out in November that could be a serious problem of no income. That would be 6 months without income at the least! It does show I really, really have to get MetLife to stand behind me in this.

The other interesting thing is that it might not even go to court. The judge could look at my case and approve it right away. The important thing I learned is that they can’t deny me without a court hearing. So that’s good.

The weird thing is I won’t hear until a decision has been made or just before the hearing. So, it’s kind of up in the air. It’s out of my hands now, which is good.

 

More updates to come.

 

This blog is made possible thanks to GoDaddy coupon 199scott. Get your own blog for just $1.99.

 

Madeline Fresco is a novelist who lives in San Francisco. She is the author of CROSSED THE LINE, available for Kindle at Amazon.com, for Nook at Barnes & Noble, and as an ePub at other eBook retailers. You can also listen to her novel as a free, serialized audiobook at madelinefresco.com. Her second book THE CHOICE, is available on Kindle at Amazon. Her third book ANGUISH, is available for Kindle at Amazon.com

Does anyone have any information on California Stem Cell Treatment Center? April 24, 2014

I have been looking up clinical research trials for stem cells and places that might do a study. I know that UC Davis does some and that other places in Colorado and Texas have been running their own trials.

 

Here is a video I’m currently watching about UC Davis and their program for stem cell in relation to chronic pain.

 

 

While doing my search, I found a place in California that will do non-FDA approved stem cell procedures. This makes me wonder how safe this is. The place is called California Stem Cell Treatment Center.

 

What do you guys think of non-FDA approved treatments? Quite frankly, I really don’t care. What I’m more worried about is their surgical technique. I don’t want some willy-nilly doctor sticking a needle in my spine if he doesn’t know what he is doing.

 

Let me know what you think in the comments.

 

This blog was made possible thanks to GoDaddy coupon sigler295. It allowed me to purchase this blog for $2.95. That way, I get to rant about my back for cheap, and just as cheaply, keep a record about how I was feeling this whole time.

 

Madeline Fresco is a novelist who lives in San Francisco. She is the author of CROSSED THE LINE, available for Kindle at Amazon.com, for Nook at Barnes & Noble, and as an ePub at other eBook retailers. You can also listen to her novel as a free, serialized audiobook at madelinefresco.com. Her second book THE CHOICE, is available on Kindle at Amazon. Her third book ANGUISH, is available for Kindle at Amazon.com

Happy Easter! April 20, 2014

I love Jim Gaffigan. Check out this clip.

 

 

Enjoy!

 

This blog is made possible thanks to the good people at GoDaddy. Get a site for just $2.95 using GoDaddy coupon sigler295.

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Madeline Fresco is a novelist who lives in San Francisco. She is the author of CROSSED THE LINE, available for Kindle at Amazon.com, for Nook at Barnes & Noble, and as an ePub at other eBook retailers. You can also listen to her novel as a free, serialized audiobook at madelinefresco.com. Her second book THE CHOICE, is available on Kindle at Amazon. Her third book ANGUISH, is available for Kindle at Amazon.com

Random Ramblings: Lots going on – failed doctor appointment, 2nd denial from social security April 12, 2014

There has been a lot going on this last past week.

It started on Tuesday being contacted by MetLife to find out if I thought I could do any kind of work. There were a lot of questions about what I’ve tried so far and how I’ve been feeling for the last year. It was pretty emotional having to talk through how shitty my life has been the last year and a half. I actually cried on the phone. I couldn’t help it. I really wish things were different, and to try and explain yourself to someone was extremely emotional.

Then on Wednesday I decided to go see the new back D.O. again. Ultimately, I decided to try and see him again. One, I felt slightly pressured (by myself) from MetLife to have a follow-up with the guy. I just wasn’t sure since I have been in continuous, worse pain since the last time I saw him. Yet, I thought it would be good to actually find out what he was going to do for me, since I was in pain and all, I might as well find out at what cost.

The drive there is only two blocks away. It hurt so bad! A part of my back that had never hurt before, plus the annulus, and all of the lower back muscles. I had to try and hold myself up in the car just to take some of the edge off.

We made it there, and, thankfully, they whisked me right in. He asked me how I was doing, and I told him the truth — way worse. He decided that he wouldn’t do any manipulations that day and wait until I wasn’t so flared up. I have to tell you, I really, really appreciated that. I’m so flared up right now I could barely walk around the block. I asked him what he thought I should do in the mean time, and he suggested getting some cranial massage to try and relax my nervous system. I think as long as the people can come to my house, that would be in my best interest.

Today I was supposed to see that Dr House guy. Again, the office gave me the run-around. My appointment was originally scheduled for 2:00. It then got bumped to 3:00 and then 3:30. She was so bitchy with me on the phone and I just don’t want to suffer trying to drive there and find that I have to wait forever just to see him and be in severe pain tomorrow and, well, let’s be honest, for weeks upon weeks after.

I had a long conversation with my husband and we both agreed (which was really nice) that I wouldn’t go. He called the office and asked since I already had the time scheduled, if the doctor would call me for a consult — she didn’t even ask him, she just said no. I think, just after this last appointment and how bad my back hurts, I’m just not up to it. I keep trying and trying. When is enough enough? How many doctors do I have to see? I’ve seen 3 back doctors, 3 pain management, 6 different physical therapists, 2 different acupuncturists, a rheumatologist, my primary, my endocrinologist, a massage therapist, and a myofascial therapist.

I’m so frustrated by this last setback. It’s bad. It hurts when I lay down again. Walking is difficult. Stretches — forget stretches. I’ve had to lay down twice just to write this blog post.

I’ll check back in next Wednesday. That will be two weeks from onset of flare-up/setback. Man, I hope it is in between the car setback and the bike setback. 2 weeks for bike and 7 weeks for car. Although, I feel like it will be more like the car seeing as it was a similar motion — leaning back.

** This blog was made possible thanks to GoDaddy coupon sigler295. By clicking that link, you can get a blog for just $2.95.

If you want to know more about me, besides the back pain, check out my main blog page at www.madelinefresco.com. There I have links for my three novels, out in Amazon on Kindle.