Giving myself a do-over!

So now that I've had a blog for over and year and never really posted to it, I've decided to give myself a do-over. This seems like the perfect time because I'm just coming back from a youtube break while I dealt with my seemingly never ending back problems. But this time is different. Not just my commitment to my blog but also because for the first time in 17 years I have a shred of hope at living a halfway normal life! I've been keeping a secret all summer and I think I'm finally ready to let the cat out of the proverbial bag. I thought before if I said it out loud to the world, then Murphy's Law would take hold and my shred of hope would be...well...shredded. But I've never been a glass half empty sort of gal and it's time I started acting like it! So here goes....My new pain specialist told me that there's a chance that he can CURE ME! Well, he didn't actually say cure, he said that he wants to perform a series of procedures on me called PROLOTHERAPY and that the procedures are curative. Potayto/Potahto, however you say it, it sounds like a cure to me!

What is Prolotherapy? As it was explained to me, it's an ancient procedure where an irritant is injected into your ligaments and then your body reacts to the irritant by growing stronger and more fibrous thereby strengthening your body. If this works, will I still have 6 bulging/herniated disks in my spine? Yes, there's nothing I can do about that but wait for the day they can give me metal spine like a terminator. But save the shooting pains down my legs, most of my pain is from my body reacting to those bad disks. My muscles have been locked up for years, I have arthritis, my hips are painful all the time, and I have joint and facet pain. Supposedly prolotherapy will cure all that. The downside to this miraculous new (yet ancient) treatment? It's not covered by insurance. And it's expensive. And it can take from 4-6 treatments for it to give maximum benefits. And there's no guarantee that it will work. OUCH.

They try to see if you're a good candidate for prolotherapy before they try it by giving you a test that IS covered by insurance. The doctor takes anesthetic and injects it into your sore places, or near them, or something, and then if you have significant pain relief for a few hours, then you're a good candidate. Problem with me is that I'm so absolutely fucked up that at first they decided they could only do half of my back because I was needing just too much anesthetic, and then there came a point when my doctor told me that he couldn't even finish the one side, that if he did any more, I'd get really sick from the amount of anesthetic. So I walked out of the office with about one half of one half of my back done and then I was supposed to figure out if it was helping? The only way I could describe it was like it felt like my hip and leg were asleep. They were tingling and numbish yet still painful. So here I've spent weeks praying that it would still work, and wondering where the hell we were going to come up with the money to try it.

So that's my big secret. Potentially life changing, at least I hope it is! Until my next appointment with my doctor I'm just going to stay hopeful and hope I find a copy of The Declaration of Independence behind an ugly painting at a garage sale, or plant a quarter and see if I can get a money tree to grow, or find myself filming the next viral video. None of these things is likely, but a girl can dream, right?!

Which brings me full circle to my do-over. If I'm going to potentially get a fresh start, why not my blog as well? This time I'm much more computer savvy, I can even edit my videos now, so why not make a run at the blogosphere? Besides, maybe if I start putting my thoughts in my blog posts, I can keep my youtube videos down in length? I sure hope so!