Maybe All I Need Is A Shot In The..... Neck?

Yesterday I went to the pain management clinic to get my facet block injections. Basically they numbed me in a couple spots on my neck, then gave me the nerve block shots which went in deep to some nerves that come off of my spine.... right around my C2 and C3 vertebrae. I'm not gonna lie... it wasn't the most pleasant experience. It didn't hurt really, but just tremendous amounts of pressure. Anyways, they said that it may take a couple days to notice anything, and that I'd have a really sore neck for a few days.... they weren't kidding. No help so far today, as I've also got a rather bad headache. If however it ends up working, which they told me would be a 50% reduction in my headaches, then they would do another one in about a month to make sure this one wasn't a fluke. If that one worked also, then that opened up all kinds of new roads, such as freezing the nerve, burning it, etc.... permanantly blocking it. So I'll keep you updated as to whether they work or not.

Also today, we finally closed on our house that we sold in Radford. About a week or so late, but at least that burden is off our shoulders..... now if things will just work out for the one we wanna buy down here.....

DIY Ringflash/light

I've been a little bored lately, so I decided to make a ringlight/flash for my camera. When you use the flash on your camera, it sometimes (most of the time) gives you that harsh flash look to your pictures with a pretty bad shadow. Well a ringflash softens the light a bit and gets rid of the shadow for the most part. You can buy a ringflash that fits over your speedlight for a couple hundred bucks or so, but my version cost less than a couple bucks. I used some cardboard, aluminum foil on the inside to reflect the light around, a piece of white garbage bag to diffuse the light when it comes out, and lots.... LOTS of tape.

Here's a shot with just the flash....

...and here's one with my contraption attached.... gives a little better light on her I think (even though the photo itself is a little blurry, chalk to that up to operator error)

Anyways, nothing really spectacular, just thought it was cool and something to share.

Splash

Headache Update

This is how I feel right now.... a little grumpy.

I have a little update on my headaches.... Things haven't been getting any better lately, so I called my doctor a couple weeks ago to see if there was anything else we could do. She prescribed me a medication called Thorazine, to take when I have a severe headache, which has been occuring more and more frequently lately. The Thorazine pretty much just knocks me out for 12+ hours.... no joke, I mean knocked out. It also makes me a little woozy when I stand up and move around. It's actually the drug I was on in the hospital(well one of them) that I passed out while I was taking it.

Anyways, fast forward to this week I talked to my doctor again in Philly and she said that things seem to have gone downhill since I was in the hospital, and the only thing she can think of is that they took me off one of my medicines while in there, so she wants to start me back on the Lyrica and see if that helps any. She also wants to see me before my scheduled appt that wasn't until May. So I have to go back to Philly on April 14th.

Also, today I was able to see the pain management doctor in Roanoke. I wasn't supposed to go in till the end of April, but they had a cancellation and so I got in early. He felt around on my neck and head, and said that I didn't have any of the signs that are usually associated with having problems with facetal nerves. He said he would do the facet nerve block injections that the doctors in Philly wanted, but he wasn't sure it'd be any help.

So that's why I'm kinda grumpy feeling today... and thats the update.

Because I don't really have any recent photos that I wanna post.... I reach into the film archive....

My Girls