Nope, no good fairy, and so far, no MRI

 Well, I was wrong. There was no good fairy. The approval I thought I had from the national insurance for the MRI didn't actually happen. I mistook the approval that did come through for the approval for the MRI. Instead, it was only the approval for the contrast material *for* the MRI. So the contrast material is approved but the MRI isn't. Lovely system. So, in short, I don't yet have approval for the MRI. We can't begin to investigate this pain problem until we have an MRI. The insurance wants me to get a recommendation for the MRI's (there are supposed to be 3 of them) from someone here in Israel. I'm not really in contact with any surgeons here, so I had to just choose an anonymous surgeon and hope he will write the recommendation after I explain everything. I will show him the recommendation from my doctor in New York and pray that he'll write the same thing, but in Hebrew, from Israel. If he won't, then I have to look for a plastic surgeon who might. The doctor in New York is a plastic surgeon, so I'm not sure if a general surgeon will do it. In short, I'm back to square one.

In the meantime, I do think the physical therapy is helping a bit. I think the pain in my hip is overall less. I'm being diligent about doing it at home as well as at the gym, and I think it's paying off. The physical therapists I work with are concentrating breaking up huge, hard adhesions (which they point out to me so I can feel, too) and working on massaging on the scars. I think much of the nerve pain I am feeling is from the scars. It hurts like hell while they are doing it, but I think it's helping overall. Maybe I can avoid more surgery after all...we'll see how things develop.

It's been a hard week. I had a week-long headache, mostly that I could work through, but on Wednesday night it became a migraine. And I mean the worst migraine I've had in years. It hurt so much I thought my head would just literally split open. I was wailing and moaning in pain, rolling around my bed. It was B A D. I threw-up a few times as well. Somehow by the grace of Gd, I got to sleep a bit after the second throw up, but the pain didn't totally go away. I fitfully slept through the rest of the night, and stayed home the next day, nursing a migraine hangover. It was really really awful. I managed to stay out of the hospital, just out of sheer distain for the hospital and all that entails. I'm OK now, Friday, but still laying low. Well, I did go to the gym today, but I took it easy.

I'm going to rest a bit now before Shabbat. I'm exhausted.

Shabbat Shalom to all!