May 3, 2018, 10:15 a.m. I was up at 9-something, just to make sure I could actually talk by 10 o’clock. My landline rang quite promptly at 10:15 a.m. I was expecting a woman, only because my tramadol and meloxicam were filled by Li, Amy RPH. But it was a man who identified himself as…
Posts
Pain Physical Therapy #3
April 27, 2018, 1:30 p.m. Today is my third individual session for physical therapy with Francis. When I checked in, the girl did not ask for a co-pay, so I’m sure someone down the line will bill me. I hate doing it like this. I would rather just pay with my card at the time…
Pain Clinic Drop-in Group
April 24, 2018 This appointment seemed so familiar (from all the weeks of the Pain Management Program), yet a little strange. I checked in and the girl at the desk took my Kaiser card and ran it through the card reader. She couldn’t seem to find anything for a drop-in Pain Clinic group. She had…
Individual Acupuncture Therapy #1
April 23, 2018, 10:10 a.m. Today is the long-awaited appointment with an individual acupuncturist (not a group of a dozen or more patients!). The assistant took me into a regular doctor’s office, small, with chairs and a patient table. Paul Simon had already looked at my medical records so he already knew everything I told…
Level 3 Pain Group Follow up
April 11, 2018 It felt like six weeks passed pretty quickly. The commute was easy and uncomplicated. Checking in and sitting in the waiting room felt very familiar although a bit strange since there was only one person I saw from our original group. After we had assembled in our group meeting room, there were…
Follow up with Francis
March 23, 2018, 11:30 a.m. Today was a follow-up appointment with Francis, the physical therapist from the Pain Clinic. Once again, he spent a full hour with me. The first thing he said was to confirm his approval of the inflatable neck traction device I had sent him a link to and which is available…
Office Visit with Dr. Kalra
March 22, 2018, 2:00 p.m. I put way more angst into anticipating this visit than I should have! How many times had I rehearsed and re-rehearsed everything I was going to say to Dr. Kalra?!? I wrote down carefully in my notebook the three things I wanted to discuss with him. His medical assistant took…
Pain Management: My Review
March 17, 2018 I have completed the 3-day-a-week 5-week outpatient Pain Management program at Kaiser. The facilitators all made it clear from Day 1 that this is not a pain relief program but a pain management! And they were right. We were not allowed to talk specifically about our pain nor about medications. I posted…
More Lab Tests Ordered
March 16, 2018 I wasn’t particularly anxious to have another A1C yet, since I have been in chronic pain since October and have experienced a lot of stress. But I had to have it, and it was even more disappointing than I had feared. 6.6%. Heavy sigh.
Pain Group Acupuncture #3
February 23, 2018 This is my last day of pain group acupuncture with Sophie. I have requested to be referred to the Acupuncture Clinic for an individual session. So, for that, I will just have to wait. Today only 3 of us from the class went to group acupuncture! I don’t know where everyone else…