It isn't anything that's showing up on X-rays. The ER doctor prescribed some pain medication and muscle relaxants, but it isn't helping her. So I'm driving up there tomorrow morning to take care of her. If the pain does not start subsiding in a few days, then she's coming back to Houston with me.
So, wish me a safe trip up there (about 8 and a half hours to get there) and wish my sister a good and speedy recovery. See y'all in a few days; don't let the forums go to hell while I'm gone.
The drive sucked, though. Eight and a half hours up there and eight hours back home. Going up there was longer because I got wolfpacked by a bunch of semitrailers and missed my exit outside Abilene, and I got stuck behind two slow-moving semis moving a prefab house for about an hour. 1054.3 miles total is what I drove this trip. I'm not doing this again for a while.
Anyway, I'm back and safe and going to bed now. I'm tired.
On the other side of things, I did get to spend quality time with my newish car. Nothing like a thousand mile journey to get one acquainted with your car's personality quirks. The only downside was that my ass fell asleep after the fifth hour of the ride up there and back. If I do another trip like that again, I'm sitting on a pillow.
The other things is that I realized that Texas has a lot of odd named stuff. I passed by a city called Nimrod. There's a ranch on Texas 36 called the Deep Shit Cattle Company. I saw signs for roads like Noodle Dome Road and Binford Road. Then there's this little town I passed called Fluvanna.
Make damn sure that those X-Rays and such are looked over by people who know what they're doing.
Two hospitals and a doctor all missed the fractures in my gf's spine that ended up leading to her needing emergency spinal surgery back in December. If any of them had caught them earlier, it might have been avoided altogether. As it was, we ran around for over a month, when any strong jolt could have paralyzed her.
Don't believe them. Don't trust them.
My mother and grandmother are going with my sister to the doctor's office tomorrow. There will be lots of tests done. My mother can be very persuasive about these things. This doctor in particular knows to just go with my mom's order on tests and stuff. She gave him a very hard time during my sister's softball years in high school. So, I feel that she's in good hands. All the same though, we are going to be careful and vigilant about this.
Well, last Friday afternoon my sister went to her orthopedic surgeon. The doctor ordered that she do an MRI on this past Monday. My sister went in and had the MRI done. The results came back yesterday, so she was in the doctors office to find out what's wrong.
It turns out that my sister has a small hairline fracture of her lower-most lumbar vertebra. Evidently, this fracture happened during this past softball when she changed her battig style. The increased strain on those muscles, etc. caused the crack. The nerves around that vertebra became inflamed when she went from a period of no activity (earlier this summer when school let out) to moderate activity (when she started working and working out again).
So, it was inflamed nerve endings in her back that caused the intense pain. The cause of the inflamed nerves was a small hairline fracture in her lowest vertebra. Her doctor assigned her physical therapy for when she gets back to Lubbock and absolutely no strenuous activity for a minimum of eight weeks. Her doctor said that the fracture should heal on it's own.
And thus the story ends happily. As long as the back heals properly and she follows through on the physical therapy.
First of Two: Nice call!
