Pinched Nerves

Nards has been suffering from back pains for the past week. It was still tolerable last Saturday, but it was bad enough that he stayed at home even though he wanted to watch Isha. Sunday, we had lunch for the family and he was dragging his feet as he made several trips to the buffet table. Monday was another tolerable day, as we only stayed home to edit photos and prepare for the following day's shoot. I started my mantra of: "let me take you to the doctor" but he refused to go.

Tuesday was Fresh Take day and took Advil but it didn't work. Did my mantra but he still refused. Wednesday was the most painful day and he couldn't move anymore. If he did, he sported a crooked posture. I went to Mercury and bought him stronger pain killers. Doubled my mantra but he was still unrelenting. Thursday, he took pain killers, was somewhat relieved and worked on the photobooth even though I begged him to stay put. The pain came back with a vengeance accompanied by fever. Gave him my mantra with a side order of tears, liberally sprinkled with admonishments. He finally agreed.

Friday, I was calling hospitals in our area to check if they have a doctor specializing on arthritis who had clinic hours within the day. Majority of them were available for consultations between Monday and Wednesday only. Nards was able to recall the name of his previous doctor, and I searched them on the UST Hospital website. (Great, website by the way, I can even make appointments online. I didn't take my chance though, I called the staff to secure a time slot.)

The doctor and her student thought Nards had acute scoliosis. That's how painful it was, he really couldn't stand or walk straight to save his life. After a full examination, we were told that it's not arthritis at all. His nerves branching from the spine got pinched and damaged, resulting in debilitating back pains. This explains why the back pains were more frequent, because of the photobooth lifting. He was prescribed steroids and nerve pain killers; and was forbidden to bend or lift anything more than 10% of his body weight. Ever. We were asked to come back for an MRI and an x-ray if the pains persist after two weeks of medication.

I'm happy and relieved to say that after two doses of steroids and two tablets of Lyrica, Nards' back has improved. He's still a little skewed, but the pain has lessened considerably. I pray that we won't need to return to the doctor at all.

I'm just so thankful he finally agreed to go to the doctor, otherwise, he'd still be lifting heavy stuff and assuming that he's having arthritis attacks and self-medicating.

He has no idea how my pinched MY nerves are this entire week.