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Your Daily Lex.

I am back.

I am back after what felt like months, genuinely, in Italy and Greece and a little bit of Turkey.

I am back.

I am back stateside.

I am mostly not jet-lagged anymore, although I did go to sleep a little bit early and wake up a little bit early, which I guess means still being jet-lagged.

But yeah, I was in bed.

I went upstairs to start my bed process around nine-something last night, and I was asleep before ten.

And I got up before six today.

But I’m getting close.

My plan for the next couple weeks of episodes, or at least the next couple days of episodes, is to take you through my Italy trip day by day.

Here’s the things we did that day.

And to make it fun and exciting and interesting.

And I still intend to follow through with that plan, but I’m going to interrupt today’s because of life happening.

As you may recall, I’ve been dealing with an arm issue for eons.

I am still at this moment dealing with the arm issue.

I tried desperately to get the treatment that the doctor said eventually landed on our forearm before we went to Italy, which was they wanted to give me what they called an epidural in between some vertebrae in my neck, some cervical vertebrae, they might say.

If you’re a doctor, I don’t know.

And that that would, they hoped, really severely lessen my arm pain.

It’s my left arm.

It’s along my normal nerves, also the biceps.

And it’s just this weird pain that they think is related to nerve compression there from the neck.

But they couldn’t do it before I went to Italy.

So I went to Italy and Lauren had said before we left, you know, you’re going to have so much fun in Italy that you’re not even going to notice your arm.

I did have tons of fun in Italy, which we’re going to talk about in the days ahead.

But it did not make me forget that my arm also sucked, which it did the whole time.

So today, Monday, was the day of the procedure.

And they asked me to be there at, I believe it was 11.15.

I’m going to check my calendar because this is important to the story.

But my day has been so long that now it’s hard for me to remember.

Yeah, they want me to be there at 11.15.

And I decided that meant I would get there at 11.

And I left at the time that I thought was appropriate to leave to get to this place that I had never been before.

And they had given me very convoluted instructions for how to get there once you were in the right area.

And I ended up getting there at 10.50.

That’s too early if I wanted to get there at 11.

But fine, I got there at 10.50.

It was a very sad waiting room because there were a lot of people in a lot of pain in that waiting room.

I was standing because the place to sit was near a person who kept coughing who I did not want to sit next to.

And they’re like, oh, you can sit.

You can sit while you’re waiting.

You can sit.

I’m like, I’m good.

And they took a very long time to take me back.

Two hours.

And when they took me back, then it was just sitting waiting for the doctor to be ready.

And then I heard that there was an issue where some stuff had been more complicated than they expected.

And then there was also a patient who they were waiting for to get approvals because she thought she had the approvals, but then insurance wasn’t approving.

And it ended up they had me go in front of her, which of course they should do since I was there and ready.

And she could not even get her procedure approved yet.

It was crazy.

It was insane.

But they took way too long to get to that point.

Eventually, they concluded they could not do her procedure today.

But so they have me in gowns for a long time before they’re doing anything.

Then they put an IV in just in case.

Even though this is done under local, not under general, let’s put this IV in so that if we have any problems, you’re ready to go.

Great.

They had bagged up all my stuff, including my clothes and phone and watch.

And they’re like, we can give your phone back if you’d like.

And I’m like, that’d be great.

They said, or we could put on the TV for you.

I’m like, no, I’ll take my phone.

I’ll take the worldwide connection to everybody and all the information in the universe versus like whatever dumb channels on your TV.

Thank you.

But eventually, they take me back.

And the nurses are explaining, look, you’re going to lie down face down here.

We’re going to strap your arms in, but we won’t do that until the doctor comes in.

You’re going to tilt your chin in towards your chest so that we can maximize the exposed area of your neck.

And then they’re going to do the thing.

And they cover me with nice heated blankets.

It’s lovely.

The doctor comes in and he’s like, there’s going to be a pinch.

And honestly, the pinch was not as bad as the IV pinch had been earlier, which also wasn’t bad.

It was fine.

And then the doctor’s talking in this very quiet voice.

He’s often talking to the nurses.

Sometimes he’s saying pressure.

And I don’t know if he’s saying pressure to me like you’re going to feel some pressure or if he’s telling a nurse, put some pressure on here.

Because I can’t feel that much of what they’re doing since he has numbed me in some way.

But he’s talking quietly and he’s talking to his resident who’s there in training.

And the resident wasn’t going to be touching me at all.

So whatever.

I believe the resident had just started here in July.

And they’re going through the things.

And then, you know, we’re getting closer to the end, I can tell.

And I really don’t know much of what’s going on.

And then all of a sudden, it’s just crazy pain.

Just crazy pain.

And I had been listening to a podcast season two of The Retrievals, which is about anesthesia problems, specifically with cesarean births.

I had been listening to it on the way there, which was probably not my smartest move in retrospect.

But just crazy pain.

And I had one second of thought of, like, I can just suck it up.

Or I’m like, you know, I’m going to communicate.

I’m like, wow, that hurts a lot.

As coherent as I could be.

He’s like, oh, my God.

This is the doctor talking.

Oh, my God, I forgot to warn you.

I always warn my patients, but I was talking to the residents.

Yeah, this is the part where you’ll feel some pain for a bit.

But usually it only lasts for five to ten minutes.

But he’s like, the worst is it lasts for five to ten minutes.

Usually it only lasts for two or three minutes.

And it did go away after two or three minutes, but it was horrible.

And it wasn’t like pain, like the pain I deal with in my arm.

It was like somebody was kind of pushing down with all their weight on my neck.

A nurse explained after the doctor had left, her interpretation of it was, you know, the medicine’s going in.

And because of the compression there, there isn’t room for the medicine.

So it’s like trying to find a way through, and that’s what causes the pain.

I don’t know if that’s an accurate explanation, if that was just her, you’re a dumb lay patient explanation or what, but that was her explanation.

Anyway, then afterwards, it took a little bit before they let me go home, but then they let me go home.

And I noted that I still had my arm pain issue, including right now as I’m recording these words.

That said, they said it would take a couple days for me to feel the effect.

They said some people feel, you know, that night.

But most people feel the effect after a day or two, and that it can take up to two weeks.

So right now I do not have relief.

But man, I’m really hoping I do because I am very tired of this arm issue.

Anyway, that’s all I got.

Tomorrow, let’s dive into Italy.

Unless other life happens, you never know.

Lex.