Personal Narrative: Lower Back Pain

Day four of clinicals was really long. The first patient was scheduled from 8 until 1, he was getting fitted for 4 crowns and an implant crown. When the patient came in he had a horrible odor and looked like he hasn’t taken care of himself in months. I seated him down and the dental assistant just glanced at his teeth and looked at me strangely and whispered come here and look. I look in this old man’s mouth and saw nothing but a brown layer of plaque and calculus build up and it disgusted me. How could someone not take care of their selves? Anyways, we ended up sending him to the hygienist's room next to us and they cleaned his teeth extra good. He came back into the room and Dr. Williams came in and quickly did a check up on his teeth and

You had a recent episode of lower leg edema (swelling) which your primary care physician prescribed Lasix (medicine to get rid of fluid). You vital signs were within normal limits and there was no oxygen saturation (rest) provided. Your electrocardiogram (recording of your heart activity) was Sinus (normal). In emergency room you received 30 milligram of Lovenox (blood thinner) and Methylprednisolone (medicine to help with breathing). You were admitted, started on aspirin, Cardiac enzymes (test) were done and your first troponin (test) was negative (no other results provided). You were continued on Prednisone (medicine) 10 milligram daily; restarted on Coumadin (blood thinner), Diltiazem (medicine), and a low salt diet was recommended as well as you received Albuterol via a nebulizer (breathing treatment) every 4 hours. Your pulmonary (breathing specialist) consult states that the shortness of breath was most likely due to deconditioning (changes in body with inactivity), obesity (over weight), and less likely due to Sarcoidosis (inflammatory disease). Chest pain syndrome was musculoskeletal (muscle-bone) in origin as it was reproducible (pain present when area is pushed

In order to generate educational and occupational options for myself, I have looked at many resources ranging from volunteering in person to researching online. I have volunteered at a retirement home with a kinesiologist to determine if I would like that type work, and more importantly, the work environment. I have also volunteered at a physiotherapy clinic and Toronto rehabilitation institute to get a clinical and hospital experience as well. This has allowed me to get a hands on experience at various difference jobs in the field of healthcare. I have also looked at online resources such as research articles, government website, NOC, and DOT. Along with these resources, I have also gotten the opportunity to work at various jobs

For this I interviewed an individual who has cancer. He is older than me, different race, cultural background, ethnicity, religious beliefs and socioeconomic status. Un-fortunality, an integral part of his pain experience is the fact he also has a long history narcotics and drug abuse. He spoke with me about his experience, once he is diagnosed with cancer and started to have severe pain. Sadly, a major barrier he has been facing is being labeled with “a drug addict”. He states “ ..doctors, pharmacists, nurses along common people hold this past against me and always are suspicious..”. Moreover, he adds “..I am smart enough to play everyone – like I did in the past - if I want, but believe me I am not trying to I am clean now and just want to have no pain”.

As I pulled into the rehabilitation center’s parking lot Monday afternoon I couldn't wait to get inside and feel the breeze of the air conditioning as I escaped from the 95 degree blazing hot weather outside. I was very anxious because I wasn’t sure how this interview would go, let alone if it would happen. I wasn't certain the physical therapist I was going to interview would have time to fit me in. I was up the night before trying to figure out what I wanted to learn from this interview and what kind of questions I would ask. I decided to focus my questions towards the physical therapist I have been shadowing to get to know more about him and his experiences with the job. So far through out my research I have been focusing on the physical therapists and their relationships with patients. I wanted my readers learn more about the person who is caring for these patients and what goes on that patients do not see.

In the beginning, physical therapy made my recovery tedious. I was only interested because it allowed me the opportunity to learn numerous types of injuries from a variety of individuals. For example, I met a girl who broke her arm from falling off the monkey bars. Or the boy who had a complete elbow dislocation, while playing basketball. Although I was entertained by these interesting stories, they made me feel guilty. I was congratulating strangers for their quick recovery, while my own felt treacherous. Therefore, I grew frustrated and irritated with physical therapy and I denied any positivity in my recovery. I became envious until my envy evolved into a depression because I was incapable of physical activities. Therefore, I was forced

When you hear the quote-"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get" from the movie Forest Gump, it may not mean much to you, but it holds true to what my life has been thus far. I was just a sixth-grade student waiting for my dad to pick me up for a routine appointment, when suddenly, we got some news that would change my life forever.

Summer of 2016, I was diagnosed with grade 1 spondylolisthesis, or also commonly known as “spondy”. This is a chronic spinal disorder caused by forward slippage of my L4 vertebrae. At my age, this poses a lot of problem for me both in my daily life and my sports performance by giving me constant lower back pain. Since I’m naturally athletic and also very passionate in soccer and fitness, my inability to train consistently and with variety have given me a lot of physical distress and mental anxiety. Through my months of rehabilitation and physical therapy, my commitment level in getting better has given me the strength to persevere through this never-ending battle.

I have been fascinated with health and people watching. Health has been a recent interest of mine because I got sick several years back and dir. couldn’t figure out why. I went through test after test with all kinds of different problems they could not solve, resulting in a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I was frustrated and I finally looked into fibromyalgia, what I found was a fancy word for wide spread pain. I began to think about the diagnosis and began to wonder why I hurt everywhere. Every morning I woke up wondering when the pain would end. The dir.’s voice kept wring in my mind she said diet and exercise. The dr. sent me to a nutritionist and my friend got me to exercise. I kept a diet journal of everything I ate after the dietician reviewed

I had noticed that I still had a slight pain in my hip, almost like the pain I had when I had first injured myself, just not as severe. So, I had to make another familiar trip to the doctors office. There I had been told that my hip was again, injured. However, to find these results, I had to go back into the MRI machine, but this time, it was worse. I had to have dye inserted into my hip in three different spots. So, I had three shots directly into my hip bone before I went into the machine. Dr. Thompson told me that my hip constantly hurting was a combination of my original hip injury, and the rate at which I was growing. I was then told to go to physical therapy for another six weeks, and then coming in every four months for cortisone

Looking back to the kickoff of my freshman year made me feel frangible. At this point, I had been a little more than halfway through my freshman and everything had transmuted once again. This time in a good way. I had just gotten out of my nerves cast about a month ago. It had been a fortnight since getting out of my cast for my broken ankle and but now I had just been able to commence utilizing my ambulating boot. The visual perception of my leg after being in a cast for 4 and half months Frightening. An aberrantly minuscule leg, can it even work where my poetic conceptions. My peregrination commenced at that moment. Two months until the commencement of club soccer season. For about a month my job in the school was to study and steadily start ambulating around the school.

On average, over 6 million people break bones each year in the United States; most of these cases will heal without problems. On August 11 of 2007 I was one of those 6 million people. It was just a normal day, summer was starting to wind down as school was about to begin. I was at a play day rodeo in Dupree for the better part of the day, I won $10 for being the champion of the ribbon jerking event. I was so happy to have received that money! My grandparents decided to have supper at their house for me and we went on our way to go visit them.

I have talked to so many people with chronic back pain and have taken care of many patients after back surgery. I never thought that I would become one of those people. Like many of you, I tried everything from physical therapy to muscle relaxers. They all helped temporarily, but nothing took the pain completely away. Here is my story and how I overcame my back pain. One night after a rigorous weight training workout I went to bed with a little soreness, but nothing I hadn't felt before. That morning I woke up and tried to get out of bed, but my back was so tight I could hardly move. It soon progressed to pain that ran down my buttock and partially down my leg. This went on for about three months and I decided to go to an orthopedic surgeon

Today clinical was a good experience, I go to do couple of things today. In the morning I attended some call lights and helped with breakfast trays. To understand more about the patients, when I brought their breakfast tray to them I chat with them a bit to get to know them. RN Norma asked me to feed Ms. EM and I fed her and maintained caring. I did total patient care for two patients, and one of them was Ms. B. I did her assessment and by interviewing Ms. B, I was able to establish what is important to her and her emotional being. I also saw signs of severe pitting edema, 4 + /8mm on bilateral lower extremities. That was good to see because I have never seen it on an actual patient before, and I kept it professionalism. I assessed Ms. B

I was expecting junior year to the best, but honestly it was the worst semester. I can honestly say I have no idea how I passed with no fails. I stopped and thank the universe for my recovery because there's no doubt my momma would beat me down to a pulp. I went back to my old habits of not paying attention in class, talking and distracting other and I even started to finish up yesterday's homework in advisory. My mentality was “I’ll bring it up at the end.” This is what I did by the way! Dreams do come true kids. Nevertheless, I slacked off a lot of my classes, I was still involved in extracurricular activities like, volleyball, HOPE, and on the side volunteering. Even with all of these extra activities I wasn’t going to be able to further