Phillip Sherwood

I spent the majority of the weekend resting because I have a whopper of a head cold with slight upper chest congestion so I went to the VA doctor at lunch and he prescribed me some antibiotics to take for a week. Tomorrow I have a follow-up appointment with the doctor who implanted my pump to do a slight adjustment. The pain medication has almost completely calmed the spasms and pain but I still get the leg shakes once in awhile. I’ve found the pump to be a mixed blessing. The good is that it has been very effective with the pain and spasms but the bad has been a reduced feeling in the lower extremities and my legs fill up with fluids and become very heavy and difficult to maneuver. The abdominal functions like renal and digestive are out of whack as well. One thing is that I can’t feel it when I need to go to the bathroom and now I’m back on the clock. My night sweats have also thrown the hydration factor for a loop. I’m sure things will begin to settle down after a bit but until then I’m still restricted from standing, stretching and any type rigorous upper body activity. I’m hoping for a better night.

I have been fighting a cold for the past week but it’s got a hold of me and taking me for a ride. It’s a productive chest cold with congestion and stuffy nose. I’m staying inside and resting and hoping it doesn’t worsen. Also noticeably my legs are retaining lots more fluid now with the absence of the spasms to squeeze the fluid back up into the body to be filtered and circulated. If I’m not 100% by Monday morning, it’s off to the doctor’s because any type of lung infection can have traumatic effect.

I have been very consumed with long days with not enough hours in it to finish all that needs to be done while at the same time trying do them all regardless. I underwent surgery early last week to have the pain pump implanted and although the procedure went well, it’s been a continual period of changes my body is going through and trying to interpret what is happening as good, bad or needs attention. I went in shortly after noon on Tuesday November 17th to get marked and my final consult prior to going under the knife. I then went over to Women & Children’s Hospital of Huntsville to start the pre-op procedures. I went under the anesthesia quickly without even realizing it was administered. Before I knew it, I was coming out of the artificially induced sleep. I was given something for the anxiety prior to the procedure to help me deal with the nightmare of a memory from the last surgery from my back surgery. The strange thing about awakening from the surgery is that you hear people calling your name and trying to get you to answer them but you still can’t open your eyes yet because you are so disoriented. After I was fully coherent and stable, they wheeled me to a private room. Later the doctor came to tell me about the surgery but it wasn’t long after that I’d totally forgotten about his visit.

My friend Martha who is visiting me from Bolivia was there with me throughout the process and was a great help. I was doing well that night in the hospital for observation expecting to be released the next day when things took a turn and I got very sick. I ended up staying an extra day for additional follow-up and was finally released Thursday afternoon. I was instructed to stay at home and rest throughout the weekend, take my antibiotics, sponge baths only, no standing, no upper body exercises, to twisting and refrain from any physical exertion. My post-op follow-up appointment was scheduled for Tuesday the 24th. By Thursday evening, I had an itch above my transition line in my chest that was so annoying I could have scratched through the rib cage. I was later told they were normal withdrawal symptoms from the surgical anesthetics I was given. Each day they got a little better but I hate itching so much I’d rather have the pain back. Between the anesthesia weaning, the dilated flowing directly to the spinal column through the catheter and the amount of Benadryl I was taking to offset the itching, I was in a virtual zombie state through Saturday. I even had to reduce my oral meds by half just to be semi-coherent.

The rest of the surgical anesthesia left my body and the pump became my primary source of pain & spasm relief, it became obvious the dosage being delivered would need a boost. My back pain was reduced but not gone, my spasms began to reappear at inopportune moments and my right shoulder seared with pain during my transfers. On Tuesday the 24th, I went in to see the doc and he ended up increasing my dosage by 50% to now 1.5ml/day. It’s now Thanksgiving Day and my spasms have disappeared by about 90% except for the occasional beating of my left leg. My back pain is gone and since I have to wear a binder around my waist for about 3-4 weeks, the pressure of it squeezing my slowly dissipating Buda belly makes me feel like I’m always stuffed from eating. The shoulder pain is a little bit less and I can transfer while wincing only moderately but this will be one of my issues to call more attention to during my next appointment on Tuesday. My bowels still have not returned back to normal operating condition but today was my last day of taking my antibiotics so I help that corrects things. Last night my legs were exceptionally swollen so I slept with them elevated on a mound of pillow.

The house is coming along well and it should be done in time by the scheduled closing on December 23rd. I’ve upgraded and optimized my home theater unit so it will easily integrate with the automated home electronics. I’ve left my position as the Production and Foreign Military Sales Lead for the Black Hawk simulation program I’ve been on for the past four year and have started a new and exciting project within fixed-wing aviation training systems and am looking forward to the new opportunities this program will bring. The weather is now dropping into the freezing levels making getting around in the wheelchair more cumbersome thus some actions require more time to perform. Today I slept until 2pm having gone well into my energy reserves. Time to hit the sack.

I’m not burning off of all eight cylinders today and my sleep cycle is all out of whack. I spent a long miserable night scratching my itches I’ve been feeling since the evening of the surgery. I took soo much Benadryl last night I thought it would knock me out enough to keep me from scratching the inside of my longs. The effect of the pump is instantaneous but I still have to take all my oral meds in the interim. Before the surgery began the doctor told me they were going to fill the pump with morphine bit I requested he either upgrade it to something else or to use children’s baby aspirin. He then rewrote the script for dilaudid instead after I explained the many time I’d been prescribed but with little to no positive effect. Today my head feels as if it has been in a fish bowl so when I go in to the clinic next week for my follow-up, I will need to get him to throttle back the dosage.

I didn’t realize I haven’t updated my site in a while. I was released from the hospital about an hour ago and fill everyone in. On Tuesday afternoon, I had an “intrethecal medicine pump surgically implanted” to meter micrograms of medicine directly into the spinal column in an effort to stop the back & Shoulder pains I get and to keep my legs from spazz’n so hard at night that they don’t let me sleet.

I didn’t realize it’s been a week since my last post so here goes an attempt to capture the highlights. The International Utility Helicopter Conference at the Opryland hotel went very well last week and the hospitality of the hotel staff made the stay very enjoyable. One of the highlights of the trip was to share a night of friendship with many friends I’ve known for several years from both near and far away places aboard the General Jackson showboat. The Delta section where my “Penthouse” room was located had recently laid fresh new plush red carpet in the hallways and the chair I brought was the Transformer Manual Stander that is not the most suitable for this type of flooring and the ergos are not quite setup for the maximum push position. By the end of the week, I was getting better and stronger at negotiating the red version of the Le Brea Tar Pits but little did I realize it was taking a toll on my bad shoulder. By today I felt the cortisone injected right shoulder had run its course and was no longer suppressing the debilitating AC joint pain. Another by-product of the very long days and nights during the conference combined with the work needed to be done throughout this weekend to prepare my simulation program took an additional toll on depleting my Duracels that today I left work at noon and decided I needed to take the rest of the week off on vacation.

I received a call from the Surgeon’s nurse today advising me that my surgery to implant the baclofen pump is scheduled for November 17th. I go in at 12:30 that afternoon to get “marked” then proceed on to Women’s and Children’s Hospital of Huntsville. I never knew they even had OR’s there. I will most likely be off work the rest of next week as well. I went by the house yesterday to see the progress and was a little disappointed in what little was done during the week. There’s only 6½ weeks to go and it seems like there’s still so much left to do. I’ve begun ordering the hardware needed for my “smart home” so things in this area are also beginning to roll.

My week at the VA last week went well and I made a lot of progress in many areas. One thing I went for was to be evaluated for a hand-bike which is something they don’t provide to just any vet because they think they may want to take up the sport because they are expensive pieces of “non-essential” equipment. I had to do a reweigh from my last physical then a Recreational Therapy reassessment and update. This interview took about two hours. I just found out that a scheduled appointment for someone living over 100 miles from Augusta is entitled to free hotel lodging. Although this would have been very nice to know nearly two years ago, better late than never applies here. The drive back went well and I was back in the office Friday morning before I knew it.

I recently went in for my interview for the Big Brother Big Sister of Northern Alabama program and the process is now in motion. One of the requirements is for them to do a home assessment so I have that part delayed until I get moved into the new house. Speaking of which, I was out there yesterday and progress continues to be made. The cabinets and light fixtures are installed and the brick and stonework outside is complete. All doors are installed and locks are on so I now have to go to the office to get the key to enter. I’m making more progress on my smart home planning and will start acquiring the hardware within the next couple of weeks. I met my carpenter yesterday also to review the drawings for the closet, pantry, laundry room and office shelving and cabinetry. This week I expect all the outdoor concrete to be poured.

Saturday I hit the wall and my body told me to chill the f*%# out. I woke up with a horrible headache that just hung on all day and fearing that I may have contracted something while at the VA. I spent the night victimized by my legs acting out the part in a Bruce Lee karate movie while I tried my best to control them. I didn’t have much of an appetite all day either and around 4PM, I laid down for just a long blink and before I knew I was looking at the clock through blurry eyes and it was 8:25PM! If there were any “trick-or-treaters” at the door, I slept through the door knocks. I left yesterday afternoon from Huntsville and arrived at Opryland in Nashville around 2½ hours later in the dark. The fall time change in the U.S. is not enjoyable with such shortened days. This is something while living closer to the equator I had the luxury of averting. As I crunch the new house pictures, I’ll load them up shortly.