Life After ADR

11 ½ Months Update: Approaching One Year!

In this Update:

Changing roles
Getting ready for my follow up
Petition
Cirque du Soleil – Luzia

Changing roles
I love emergency nursing. In fact, I joined the Emergency Nurses Association while I was in my senior year of nursing school. But what that last year has also taught me is that I need to decrease my level of constant stress and look out for my health. Granted, my initial disc herniation at L5/S1 was due to a car accident many years ago but I can’t deny that my job certainly didn’t help, especially during the last couple of years when things got from bad to worse. Most importantly, I realized that being under constant stress the way I have been is not how I want to continue my life.
So, I decided a while back to make some changes, but it will most likely take me until the end of the year to make it happen. Good news is that I can still be on the DEMPS disaster relief team and on my local Director’s 50 Emergency Response team – both also passions of mine.

Sooo, we have that impressive National SimLearn Center located right across from where my hospital is at (it’s also VA-related). I am going to finish my Master’s degree as Nurse Educator by the end of this year, and I really would like to transition there. One course that is being taught at the SimLearn Center is the “Trauma Nurse Core Curriculum “course, so I decided to become an instructor. Unfortunately, I work under management that doesn’t really support growth and continued education, and during the last couple of weeks I actually had to use my days off and even vacation time to attend this class where my performance was evaluated. That meant that I had to deal with 16-hour days. After eight hours of class I had to finish up eight hours of work, so I was ‘on’ from 7 o’clock in the morning to almost midnight, and only to do it again the next day. Mind me not, I had to take vacation time for the class hours that overlapped the beginning of my shift... But I did it. Somehow. It’s a blur at this time. So, say “hello” to your new TNCC trauma nurse instructor!

Thank you, LP-ESP, for not letting me down, even though I was either standing for hours, sitting in a class room for hours, or running around at work for hours. Couldn’t have done it without you!

Getting ready for my follow-up
Also quite exciting, at least to me, is the fact that I am approaching the one-year mark post ADR surgery! One year! I just got my orders placed for x-rays and will be getting this done this coming Thursday. Dr. Desai’s office sent me a link to submit my images electronically, and if that works out as planned, this service will be available to all future patients!

I am planning to write a more detailed reflection on the past year in the next edition. I am actually quite anxious to see what the images look like, especially since I didn’t work out for an entire month due to the stress and lack of time from work, graduate school, and other miscellaneous obligations. I did hear some weird clicking sound a couple of times during the past several weeks, but I couldn’t quite place it. I have absolutely no pain, so I am not sure where it came from. It didn’t happen often, and I haven't heard it in a while, so I hope it is benign.

Petition
I received an email request through my website from Backernation.com, asking me to share a petition they started in an effort to overturn Aetna’s stance on denying lumbar ADR coverage for their patients.

Aetna’s policy review of lumbar ADR coverage is coming up in June, so Backernation created this petition as one way of ensuring that our voices are heard: http://chng.it/6Q9mxPvcVS

I have been on their website in the past when I was doing ADR-related research, so I am somewhat familiar with them. Backernation also shared an article that explains why Aenta changed their policy in the past to refuse lumbar ADR coverage now: https://backernation.com/healthcare/insurance/major-health-insurer-refuses-patient-access-to-lumbar-total-disc-replacement

In any case, I thought I share.

Cirque du Soleil – Luzia
Even though I have been so stressed and feel like the days are simply not long enough to accommodate all I need to do, Ralf and I did attend the Cirque du Soleil – Luzia performance last Saturday night. Those tickets were a Christmas present, and we had not just awesome seats but also enjoyed the show tremendously.

Even with that extremely excited older guy that was sitting next to me, yelling “Bravo” and stomping his little feet with the music…. Because the temporary seating was rather crammed, it was a tad annoying (and I deep down wished for a syringe filled with Ativan a couple of times), but you couldn’t really be mad at the guy since he was obviously completely mesmerized… In any case, it was a nice break, even if it was only for a couple of hours.

... Ok, who else is a little disturbed by that guy???

irisappenrodt

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View Comments

Hetty A Lima says:

March 21, 2019 at 6:16 pm

Great overview - happy to hear about your recovery and Congrats on your new certification! My son is currently working on his MSN. Quick question - can you please provide the eLink for Dr Desai - to upload imaging! Vielen dank!
Hetty