So as the subject says, I'm back. I left temporarily and stepped down from being a mod because it wasn't fair to the team to have me as a mod when I was hardly online. I wasn't online much because doing my job was hard enough and was getting harder all the time. As some of you may recall, I have diabetes. June 29th last year I had a low blood sugar episode and went into a seizure at work. I ended up in the hospital for a few hours and was discharged. However, it wasn't just my diabetes, in fact it was my neck and back that was causing the most problems. I started seeing a pain specialist in August of last year. Also in August last year, my then fifteen year old daughter moved out to live with my folks a few states away. With the pain in my neck and back, it caused me to burn through my FMLA, and even once that was gone, I was still missing work. My employer bent over backwards for me, being patient in hoping things would get better. It got to the point where I was working less than twenty hours a week. After work, I often would find myself throwing up. They finally let me go on January 2nd of this year. With my neck, it doesn't quite register as pain. It feels more like tension that goes up my neck and the back of my head and then wraps around to the front. Once that happens, I throw up. The doc has diagnosed this with cervical spinal stenosis (shrinking of the spinal cord). They tried giving me an epidural in my neck, but that exacerbated the issue, and I ended up in the hospital for overwhelming depression. We ended up having to move from our townhome to a studio apartment, and came real close to being homeless. My pain specialist has referred me to a surgeon. They say it's basically get the operation or eventually I will be paralyzed. My lower back still hurts, but my neck is the dominant factor. Most of the time I just lay down most of the day. I can sit up for a bit, but it is limited as to how long I can be vertical. Sometimes I might be able to do two hours. Other times I might be able to be vertical for six hours. Now, I am filing for disability. Sometimes, my neck and back have bothered me so much that I haven't been able to get on my computer at all for an entire day or two. Usually when my neck gets that over worked, I spend the next couple of days or so having to rest. The problem is, I don't really know when I have over worked my neck until it's to late. So, now we are mostly caught up.
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