A proud moment!

We closed a loan. In half the loan period. Super proud of us!

 

A borrowed bucket list

Having a bucket list is not a new trend. I guess when I was younger [notice the "er"? I'm still young.], we would just have a list in our minds about the things we wanted to do in our lives. The trend these days is to jot down that list lest you forget what you've always wanted to do. The mommy amnesia is a real thing that mommies go through, so I'd rather have this list noted down for future reference.

So here goes - an incomplete list that I intend to check each item off of. I call it borrowed cos there are a lot of items here that I have borrowed from my friends' bucket lists.

1. Help someone do something from their bucket list.
2. Buy a villa/independent home.
3. Surprise the hubby once a month for a whole year.
4. Go abroad on a family vacation, with the whole family.
5. Drive and be independent - on a daily basis.
6. Work at a job that I love.
7. Have a fairly regularly updated blog.
8. Get a red rose from the hubby without having to tell him to buy me one.
9. Get a mothers day card.
10. Sponsor a kid's education.
11. Go to a pub and party late.
12. Have a best friend to tell everything to.
13. Learn salsa.
14. Lose weight and fit into the healthy category on the BMI scale.
15. Get a tattoo.
16. Fly first class.
17. Go back to Le Meridian, Mauritius.
18. Name my kid after my best friend.
19. Write a letter to an unknown existing address and see if they respond.
20. Learn to play an instrument.
21. Make a standing payment to a charity.

22. Pay off a loan.

23. Run a marathon, or at least a half one.

24. Have a balcony veggie garden.
25. Do something nice for a stranger.
There. That's the first 25 that have come to mind. I'll keep the list up to date cos my mind is quite a wanderer and I'm sure it'll come up with more than these.

Doctor who?!

So this is a post about something I feel very strongly about.

17 months back, I had a beautiful daughter. The labor was 12 hours long and the pain was worth it. But the delivery left me with quite a few aches and pains. Many of them died down in the following months when I had no time to worry about them cos I was busy with a new born whom I did not know how to handle.

Over the period of the past year or more, I've learnt how to deal with my baby. But I haven't been able to deal with a pain that started right after my delivery but refused to go away as my baby grew up. It started as a dull ache at the junction of my pubic bone and my right leg. It grew into a constant ache which stopped my from stretching or spreading my legs. I couldn't squat like earlier, I couldn't sleep in my most comfortable position, the pain was always there. With Google being my savior, I started looking for reasons for this ache. I found a few relevant results but one particular result echoed best with me. The symptoms sounded like just the ones I had, the stories from the ladies who had faced the same sounded just like mine. And I decided that was my ailment - Diastasis symphysis pubis. More googling and I found out that it happens due to the spreading or separation of the ligaments in the pubic symphysis area typically occurring in pregnant women during child birth. That's it, it had to be what I had! After dealing with the trauma of this pain silently for 8 months, I decided to go see a doctor about just that pain. I had mentioned it to my gynac in the past, but she hadn't paid too much attention to it since I was a new mother who had gone through a normal delivery and she wanted me to give my body time to heal. So, there I was waiting in an Orthopedic clinic, waiting for my doctor to tell me that my suspicions were right. Once that was done, he would tell me what to do about it, and the pain would vanish. I was excited for my pain-free future! The doctor examined me, asked for a hip x-ray, examined the x-ray and declared that it was nothing but a Vitamin D deficiency! He sent me home with calcium and Vitamin D tablets. 2 weeks later, the tablet strip was empty but my pain was still there. I resigned to my fate and decided that I would live with the pain. I had dealt with it for 8 months, so I guessed I could deal with it till I was 80.

In the next 6 months, every single night, I slept in my favorite position despite the pain and the pain became a part of me. I did not remember a time when I was pain-free. And then someone in the family mentioned that a famous Orthopedic surgeon was a distant relative. He also turned out to be my dad's friend's uncle, which I thought would make him a million years old, but when it came to doctors, the more experience the better. I went to him primarily about my back which was giving me trouble at that time. Before I could mention my pelvic pain, he sent me for an x-ray for my back. He looked at the x-ray and declared that my ailment was my weight! "Lose weight", he said. "The physio will teach you some exercises". I started to mention my pelvic pain and he cut me short saying "You lose weight and come in 2 months, then we'll see!" Ummm, how about my other pain? How about the fact that the back ache that I came for has been related to the uterine fibroid I had by my gynac? No, lose some weight! His condescending tone made me angry, my hubby suggesting that I shouldn't doubt the doctor and should try what he suggested made me mad! I knew the doctor was a prick, I hated him.

Another month later, I was back in the same doctor's office, getting my elbow checked. He was the only famous Orthopedic doc we knew and I really needed to get my elbow checked. When he began examining my elbow, I mentioned that I had a tennis elbow in the past. Before I completed my sentence, he declared this was not a tennis elbow. Another few bucks for a new x-ray and he asserted with prominence that this was cos I don't use my elbow enough! Yeah, right!! With a toddler running around the house, I think I might be due for a few awards for over using my elbow!! Under-using it, my foot! Those 5 minutes in the doctor's room were too expensive, hurtful and dis-satisfactory! A cactus was smooth in comparison to this doc! Did I mention he was a prick? I wouldn't go back to him, I promised myself.

Last week, my daughter turned 17 months old. I decided that I couldn't take my original pelvic pain for 17 more days, let alone till the time I'm 70! Some talking to close family and friends and turns out a friend's dad was an Orthopedic doctor! I knew no doctor visit could match the insults I had already endured and I decided to give this new doc a shot. He had a good 35 odd years of experience and had also been the principal and dean of a medical school - Dr. J.N. Sridhara Murthy.

My visit to him was more than satisfactory. I had tears in my eyes on my way back from him. From joy, from the feeling of having been right the whole time, from having finally found a doctor who would lead me to a pain free life!

Let me rewind a little. I showed him my elbow first, he examined it, and in less than 5 minutes, he told me that my elbow, wrist and shoulder pain were all related. He told me what would help relieve the pain. And when he wrote the prescription, he mentioned that tennis and badminton players usually get this sort of pain. I clenched my fist and asked him "So, this is tennis elbow?" He nodded. I punched the other doc in my mind with my clenched fist!

Then he examined me for my pelvic pain. He looked at the older x-ray after he was done and shook his head. That x-ray was not for the area that was causing the pain, he said. He said the x-ray was a hip one and the pain was in my pubic bone. He said this seemed to be pubic symphiasitis. I almost cried that instant. He sent me for an x-ray and 5 minutes later, he showed me how a thin hair line gap had widened into a pen wide one! My 17 month old analysis of my pain was bang on! I'm undergoing treatment with him right now to make this pain go away. I am hopeful for the future. The pain does not have to become a lifelong part of me anymore.

There's 2 things you can take away from this post.

One, if you are looking for a good orthopedic doctor, Dr. J.N. Sridhara Murthy is THE man to go to! He is amazing! He spends much more than just a couple of minutes with you, listens to every single thing you ave to say, clarifies your doubts, suggests possible solutions, encourages you to chose the right one. At the end of the visit, the support staff don't tail you to pay up. You end up waiting to pay them cos they are busy with the doctor, who has happily moved onto listening to the woes of the next patient. 

Two, always remember that you know your body best. If something is not feeling right, it most certainly is not right. I do not suggest self healing using google. Google can open up possibilities and you can always try and match what you read with what you are going through. But what I'm saying is that at the end of the day, don't take shit from a doctor who thinks his multiple degrees permit him to tell you that there's nothing wrong with you after you've paid him more than a wad and still go home feeling that something's not right. Like I said before, you know your body best!

Back-blog

I have quite a lot of backlog when it comes to blogging. There's so much to say, so little time. A lot has changed since the last time I wrote here. Life itself has taken on a whole new dimension. More people important, some old ones forgotten, job changes, priority changes, all of that. Now I write more on my online private diary than on this blog. 

A good friend has a blog that she updates frequently. That's where the inspiration to get back to blogging has come from. And then there's all those ideas in my head about what to write about. Lets see if I make the time to actually do this on a regular basis. 

Hopefully, back soon.