Seeking relief

I finally saw a pain specialist on Friday: another instance of hearing one story from a confident-sounding resident and then another from the senior doctor. Still, they were nice and sympathetic. They ended up sticking with Tylenol and codeine, but in separate pills and different doses; I have a long-acting codeine and a short-acting one to top it up. The addition is Elavil (amitriptyline), an old-style antidepressant that also relieves nerve pain and helps induce sleep. The doc explained that the pain and numbness around my ribs are due to nerves being pinched at the spine.

I noticed a big difference the first night; the rib pain was much reduced and I slept quite a bit. But I'm still waking up with spine pain and having to get up to take more pills. And I'm feeling very dopey during the day. I didn't really feel like I was awake today until about 3 o'clock.

Had an MRI of my head yesterday; the technician, when I asked, told me that the dye he injected would not produce any side effects, but after he slid me into the tube, my mouth began to produce voluminous amounts of saliva. I had to swallow repeatedly and felt like I was drowning -- I almost pushed the panic button -- but I managed to stay put and the saliva eventually died down. I hope the swallowing didn't affect the picture. After I was taken out of the tube, I told the technician what had happened. "Yes, some people have that reaction; some even throw up," he said. Gee, thanks.

Being in the MRI tube, accompanied by what sounds like outtakes from a recording by an avant-garde electronica band, doesn't make me claustrophobic. It used to be, though, that I'd imagine being abandoned in the machine while the technicians were evacuated for a fire or the end of the world or something. Now, when I have to have an extended scan, I meditate, and the time goes fairly quickly.

Tomorrow I'll have a CT scan of my head, but before that the spine radiation begins: please, please let it have an effect. A positive effect.

Pollyanna moments:

• We've had such beautiful weather this fall. Not too cold, sunny most of the time. It has a salutary effect on my mood. I remember the winter of 2002-03, when my friend Adele was dying, she commented at one point that the sun had not shone in six weeks, which we characterized as typical Toronto weather. I ended up suffering from massive depression and anxiety that winter, which I blamed on a lot of circumstances, but now that I think of it, the lack of sunshine couldn't have helped much, and it must have made Adele's life hellish. I've been thinking of getting some of those seasonal-affective disorder lights, though I have no idea which ones are the best. But I must say that the past couple of winters have seemed much sunnier than usual to me.
  
• Rosie took over my kitchen yesterday and made me soup and smoothies and other good things.