The Great Sneeze of 2018

The following originated as an email to my immediate family. After I sent it, I noticed several typos and omissions that have hopefully all been corrected below. I also received questions from people NOT in my immediate family about what happened, so I thought I'd write it down once so that I could just send the link to anybody who was curious. Enjoy!

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I was discharged from the hospital yesterday, and I wanted to tell the story for those that are curious, as well as make sure my gratitude for those involved is expressed.

Sometime around early August I hit my mental limit with my weight and out-of-shape-ness and wanted to start doing something about it. So, I started walking Goldschmidt (the family dog) as often as I could. The last walk that I took him on, he got spooked by something and took off down a small gravel hill, pulling me hobbling down the hill after him. I didn't let go of the leash, which might have been a mistake.

For about a month after that, I became unable to sit in a normal chair for more than about 5 minutes. I could only stand or lay down, and bending down to grab things off of the floor became a chore. I did a lot of stretching and Tamara did a lot of massaging. I went to see my chiropractor several times and he did what he could. But it wasn't getting better. During this time, I had a work trip to Philadelphia scheduled. I was really worried about flying across the country with back pain, so I asked for a priesthood blessing from my Dad, and my brothers, Jason and Tyler, joined in. I was able to make it through the trip, though it was a bit painful.

When I got home and back in my couch potato routine, I started to feel pretty worthless and isolated. I couldn't sit at the table with the family for dinner. I could go out and play catch or wrestle with the kids. I once again reached a mental limit and decided that I was going to go play some softball. My flawed logic went something like, "Maybe getting out in the fresh air with a bat in hand would help loosen up the joints. Bad idea.

The day after the softball games, I went from not being able to sit, to not being able to sit, stand, or walk without intense pain that started in my back and radiated in the left side of my rear end, and down my left hamstring and calf. The ball of my left foot also started tingling as if it was going numb. After 3 or 4 days of near-complete immobility (putting on pants, taking a shower, walking up stairs were all painful) Tamara and I concluded that we couldn't keep going like this. I had another work trip coming up and I knew that I wouldn't be able to bear a 5 hour flight to Jacksonville and a 3-day conference without some help. Once again, my wife counseled me to ask for a blessing, which Jason and Tyler performed.

We got a recommendation from our Chiropractor to see a neurologist who specializes in back pain. The entire drive to this doctor's office was excruciating. And you'd think that back pain doctors would have more comfortable waiting room seats - maybe even some recliners. I hobbled in and waited on the uncomfortable chairs for about 1/2 hour until finally I was called back, limping like a grown-up, crutchless "Tiny Tim". The doctor gave me a shot in the rear with some pain medication, as well as a prescription for Percocet and muscle relaxers. We also scheduled a series of 3 epidurals to be spaced out at an interval of 2 weeks. Leaving the doctor's office, I was still in pretty bad shape because the shot of pain medicine hadn't kicked in. I tried sitting in the front passenger seat, but it was too painful. So, I hobbled my way around the car to the back of the Suburban and laid down in the cargo area ... you know ... where the family dog goes.

On the way home, we dropped off the prescription at the Walmart Neighborhood Market pharmacy (me still lying down in the cargo area). Walmart is apparently taking the opioid epidemic very seriously because they were very skeptical of my wife's request for Percocet. They said that they'd need to call the doctor to verify the diagnosis and the prescription. (Isn't that what the paper with the doctor's signature is for? Oh well.) They couldn't get a hold of the doctor, so they could only give us a 5-day supply instead of the prescribed 30-day supply. We said, "Fine. I just need it to get through this work trip." I was high the entire Jacksonville trip, but I was able to do my job and the pain wasn't that bad.

When I got back, I returned, once again, to my spot on the couch and anxiously awaited the day of the first epidural. The first of the three epidural injections happened last Thursday (Sept 27) and the doctor said it would take 5-7 days for the steroid to really kick in. But, I was feeling pretty good that Thursday night. So much so, that I decided to go back into the office the next day, Friday. That was a mistake. Nothing terrible happened, but it became clear to me that 5-7 days means 5-7 days. Luckily, one of the conference rooms in my office has a couch in it. Some time after lunch, I went into said conference room, claimed it as my own, and laid down on the couch for the next 4 hours or so. I came home and reclaimed my spot on my couch. Saturday, the pain got just a little worse. Not even laying down on the couch provided 100% relief. Sunday, even worse. I had been saving my last Percocet pill because I wanted to be able to attend church (I haven't been in 2-3 weeks). As planned, I took the pill, and it didn't really do anything. That should have been my first sign that something bad was coming. Monday was pretty similar to Sunday for most of the day.

Then, at about 8:00 PM on Monday, Tamara left the house to return a baby hiking carrier to a friend (Thanks, Mike and Shirley) from whom we had borrowed it. On her way back, she received a sudden, but strong feeling that she needed to stop by the house of one of my high school buddies - Jordan Glass - to ask for a priesthood blessing. He lives close to Mike, the guy from whom we borrowed the hiking carrier. Hearing that my wife asked one of my friends for a priesthood blessing was little weird to me at first. For a minute, it made me question my own legitimacy and credibility as a priesthood holder. But Jordan is a fantastic dude, and a spiritual giant with a huge heart. And when I heard the contents of the blessing, everything made sense to me.

When she got home, she asked me to look up the story of Christ helping Peter walk on water. I wondered why and she told me that, during the blessing, Jordan felt strongly that he needed to re-tell the story to her; that she should remember to look to Christ through this trial for herself and for me. He also blessed her that our home would be an extension of the temple. This was especially touching to her because neither of us have been able to get to the temple recently. Despite our desires, I can't sit in a chair, and she has a newborn (me) + 5 kids and an entire house to take care of at home. She was deeply moved by the the apparent fact that a divine power (we call it The Holy Spirit, in my religion) had instructed Jordan to provide that comfort and blessing.

After a good discussion about the significance of the blessing, I went back to working on a website project for a guy in my church congregation, and she was in the other room helping me set some stuff up. I've tried not to sneeze or cough for the past few months, because the pain is immense every time I do. (This probably sounds like a random and abrupt transition, I know ... but it will make sense shortly.) If I feel the need to sneeze, I'll rub my nose, shake my head rapidly, clear my throat, look away from light - anything to make it go away. But Monday night, as I was sitting the couch, a sneeze sneaked up on me and I couldn't stop it. 

What followed I can only describe by saying that somebody reached into my vertebrate, grabbed my sciatic nerve with a pair of vice-grips, squished that nerve like spaghetti noodle, and wouldn't let go. I've felt the short pinches before. I've felt the grabbing sensation that comes with back pain. On many occasions, it has buckled my legs and made me fall down. And it is horrible even when it just lasts for couple seconds or minutes. But when the grabbing and pinching doesn't stop ... oh man ... it was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. I yelled and yelled at the top of my lungs, uttering nonsense like, "WHY, STOP, WHY, NO, NO, NO, STOP, PLEASE! HELP! HELP! HELP!" Tamara came running from the other room as I begged her for help. With all my yelling, she couldn't hardly get a word in, so she just tried to figure out the best way to help. I gave her conflicting instructions and belted more nonsensical words. Nothing we did helped. She floated the idea of going to the ER. I yelled "NO! HOW AM I GOING TO GET IN A CAR LIKE THIS?!" and "HOW WOULD WE PAY FOR AN ER VISIT?!"

As my sister in law, Michelle, has accurately described on occasion, Tamara has a tendency to go full-on mama bear mode. So, even though she's not my mama, she put her foot down and silenced the howling lion with a big bear roar of her own. "YOU LET ME WORRY ABOUT THE MONEY! WE. ARE. GOING TO THE HOSPITAL!" She then bolted out the door and I struggled to find a position on the couch that wasn't a 10/10 on the pain scale. In about 5 minutes, through my loud moans and groans, I heard a male voice say "Hey Brother Ray." I turned my head and without thinking said, "Who is that?!" (I might need to apologize to poor Lucas. He was there to help and I yelled at him like he was intruding. 1. He caught me off guard. 2. I was embarrassed by the sounds coming out of my mouth.)

After Lucas showed up, two registered nurses that live close to us and who are in our church congregation, and two other young men from the congregation showed up to help. They all stood around in awe and shock for about 10 minutes trying to decide what to do. "Should we call an ambulance?" "NO! WE DON'T HAVE MONEY FOR AN AMBULANCE AND THEY'LL JUST PUT ME ON A BOARD!" I yelled again. I promise I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I just didn't know how to communicate without yelling when the pain was so intense. (The only way that I had found to reach an 8/10 on the pain scale was to have the group prop my left leg up with like 5 pillows.) I was terrified of moving a muscle. They determined to get a blanket and a couple 2x4s from my garage to make a stretcher. Tamara took one of the benches out of the Suburban, and laid the other seats flat so that there'd be enough room to lay me down flat in the back.

They tried to prepare me for the pain I'd feel as they transferred me from the couch to the stretcher on the floor. I told myself, "Don't embarrass yourself. Keep the vocal tones low. No baby cries. You can do this." But as they gathered around to hoist me up, they started moving my feet and legs a bit, which jumped the pain back up to 10. I started begging them to leave me alone - tears streaming down my face, scared, and exhausted after a half hour of the worst pain I'd ever felt in my life.

"Ready? 1, 2,3, LIFT!"

I was right to be scared. Being carried the 5 feet from the couch to the stretcher on the floor was 11/10 and I almost passed out. The vocalizations were not low, but panicked, carnal, squeals, followed by more blubbering and tears. They did a good job of getting me positioned on the stretcher with the pillows propping up my left leg, and when they lifted me up with the stretcher, I finally felt a 5/10. It was the most comfortable I'd been since the sneeze. Something about the way the blanket cradled my torso felt amazing. I even started making jokes. "Don't throw your backs out, guys," I said as they loaded me into the car. Nobody laughed and I don't blame them. They were all probably in shock as they witnessed a grown man with a lot of pride in his masculinity squeal like baby. "That's humor guys," I tried to remind them. Pity laughs. Oh well, I'll take pity laughs right now.

So, there I am lying on my back in the back of the Suburban like a dead deer with nothing strapping it down for stability. I stretched out my arms to my right and left to try to stabilize myself, but still every bump in the road, every turn pulled my limbs in a painful direction. I got pretty bossy with Tamara (she was driving said Suburban) commanding her to only take turns at 5 miles per hour. She said she WAS doing 5, so I amended my demand. "Okay, then make it 2-3!"

A 15 minute drive later and we're in the emergency room drive-way. A nurse pops her head into the Suburban and starts the night with about the worst cliche I can think of. "How you doing, hun?" she asks without a hint of irony or sarcasm. I didn't respond. The neighbors/heroes who had helped get me into the car followed us to the hospital so that they could help unload me. It wasn't a super busy night at the ER, so there were probably 5-6 nurses outside as well. I asked if we should also call the National Guard. More jokes. More pity chuckles. "Who is the Boy Scout?" asked one of the nurses. "This stretcher is pretty legit." "Every male here is an Eagle Scout," I replied.

They pick up the stretcher again with me in it, and again I feel a moment of slight relief. They put me and the blanket down on the gurney and removed the 2x4s. The next hour was spent repeating answers to the same questions over and over to the nurse, the CNA, the PA, and anybody else who would have a hand in my treatment. All of my answers came quickly and in 2 words or less. I just wanted the drugs. What do I have to say to get you to put a needle in my arm through which will flow relief?

Finally, somebody comes in with an IV needle. YESS! HOPE! Soon, they start pumping Fentanyl, a muscle relaxer, and Zofran (for nausea) through my arm. I'm still writhing in 9/10 pain, which keeps coming in waves. "How long should it take before the pain goes away?" I ask. "Let's give it 10 minutes," the nurse says. "10 MINUTES!?" my brain screamed (not audibly). I didn't think I'd make it that long. 

20 minutes later, and after 10 minutes of asking where the nurse is, I'm still writhing in 9/10 pain ... but now, thanks to the Fentanyl, my eyes are having a hard time focusing. The nurse finally returns at minute 22 and she can immediately tell that I'm gonna need something stronger. She says she'll get some morphine, a steroid, and a different muscle relaxer. Hearing the word Morphine, as an avid Brian Regan fan, I got pretty excited. 5 minutes later she comes back to the room with the Morphine and the other medications she mentioned. She shoots it in the IV and I wait anxiously for the relief to come. About 10 minutes later, my pain went down to an 8/10. And just as I thought I was trending in the right direction, it started to surge again.

The nurse comes back 20 minutes later and I'm still writhing, having returned to the 10/10 range. Visibly confused and exasperated, she goes to get another dose of morphine. Guess how that went? Same as before. Brief relief followed by resurgent pain. Poor Tamara was standing there watching all of this but couldn't do anything but accommodate all my impossible, contradictory requests. "Hey, can you lift my leg behind my knee and ankle ...SLOWLY!?!" "A LITTLE HIGHER! NEVER MIND! PUT IT BACK!" You get the picture. Finally, the Doctor comes back in and is apparently convinced that Fentanyl, Morphine, and all their friends aren't doing their jobs. So, he orders some Ativan - which was meant to knock me out. It took 10 more minutes to get the stuff, but they finally did. And sometime after that (not exactly sure when) I finally fell asleep. Tamara says I fell asleep around 2:30 AM.

I woke up around 6:30 AM feeling much better. I didn't dare move, but I did call Tamara because the Doctor needed me to decide if I wanted to do an MRI at the hospital or not. The doctor that was treating me on Monday night was worried that I had a compression fracture, an infection from the epidural, or something called cauda equina syndrome. The morning doctor was not convinced that any of those three possible diagnoses were correct. She saw that I wasn't in pain anymore and she chalked the whole thing up to muscle spasms triggered by the Great Sneeze of 2018. (Sidebar: You may remember that last year, the incident that sparked a spell of back pain was the Great Strep Throat Cough of 2017.) She said that, given our obvious concern for finances, her recommendation would be to continue the plan we already had set for the 3 epidurals. She said it was pretty common for these epidurals to cause a bit of inflammation in the first few days. But that 5-7 days after, it should start to take effect. She gave me a handful of pain pills (including a big dose of Percocet) and said, "Let's try getting you up and walking in 20 minutes. I took a lap around the hospital with the CNA, and did very well. I was walking gingerly, but without a limp for the first time in a month. Based on that outcome, we decided to heed her advice, forego the MRI until after the epidurals were completed, and she began the discharge process.

As the discharge process began, a lady with the computer cart came into the room to review the bill. She said the total for just the hospital came to just over $1,000. I started to panic a little bit. Then she told me that we had an HRA with $864 in it. I had no idea that I had an HRA. We had her verify 3 times with her billing department that the HRA was in my name and through Web.com, my employer. Sure enough, our bill was (miraculously) $864 less expensive that what it should have been.

So, that's kinda the whole story. I really appreciate all the thoughts and prayers from those who were aware of the ordeal. As you can see, they have been heard and felt. You're all terrific people and I'm so glad to count you as friends and family. I'm also so grateful for such an amazing wife who boldly goes where no wife should have to go. I don't know what I'd do without her.